Biodiversity within a community Flashcards
What is meant by biodiversity?
Biodiversity can be thought of as a study of all the variation that exists within and between all forms of life
How can biodiversity be assessed on different scales?
- The number and range of different ecosystems and habitats on the entire planet
- The number of species and their relative abundance within a small, local habitat (like a pond)
Why is biodiversity important?
Biodiversity if very important for the resilience of ecosystems, in that it allows them to resist changes in the environment
What is meant by ecosystem/habitat diversity?
The range of different ecosystems or habitats within a particular area or region
What is meant by an area of high biodiversity?
- A large number of different habitats within an area (high biodiversity)
- E.g. coral reef complex with lots of microhabitats and niches to be exploited
What is meant by an area of low biodiversity?
- Only one or two different habitats (low biodiversity)
- E.g. large sandy deserts conditions are the same throughout the whole area
What is meant by species diversity?
Mix of different species that exist within a particular area or region can be measured to indicate levels of biodiversity
How can species diversity be measured?
- Species richness
- Species diversity
What is meant by species richness?
- Number of species within a community
- E.g. tropical rain forest high number species richness
What is meant by species diversity?
- High species diversity are usually more stable than those with lower species diversity as they are more resilient to environmental changes
- E.g. pine forests of Florida the ecosystem is dominated by one or two tree species
Why is maintaining biodiversity important?
Biodiversity impacts all organisms (including humans) on a global scale
What are three reasons for maintaining biodiversity?
- Moral and ethical, humans have a responsibility to reduce their impact on the planet and other species
- Agricultural, genetically diverse wild species can rescue crops from catastrophes
- Economic, a range of organisms contribute to medicine, ecotourism, science and technology