Biodiverstity 🟠Flashcards
What is causing an increase in waste
Rapid growth in the human population and an increase in the standard of living mean that increasingly more resources are used and more waste is produced. Unless waste and chemical materials are properly handled, more pollution will be caused.
Where does pollution occour and what can it cuase?
Pollution can occur:
• in water, from sewage, fertiliser or toxic chemicals
• in air, from smoke and acidic gases
• on land, from landfill and from toxic chemicals.
Pollution kills plants and animals which can reduce biodiversity.
How do humans reduce the ampunt of land available for biodiversity?
Humans reduce the amount of land available for other animals and plants by building, quarrying, farming and dumping waste.
What does the destruction of peat bogs cause
The destruction of peat bogs, and other areas of peat to produce garden compost, reduces the area of this habitat and thus the variety of different plant, animal and microorganism species that live there (biodiversity).
What happens to peat when it decays (becausé it comes into contabct with microrganisms when drained) or is burnt
The decay or burning of the peat releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
What gases contribute to global warming
Levels of carbon dioxide and methane in the atmosphere are increasing, and contribute to ‘global warming’.
Consequences of global warming:
- Higher temperatures causé sea water to expand and ice to melt cause the global sea level to rise. Resulting in the flooding and loss habitats
- the distribution of animals may change (changes to temp and rainfall). Some may thrive while others decrease due to struggling in warmer environments
- changes to migration patterns eg birs migrating further north as areas get warmer
- biodiversity could be reduced if species are unable to survive and becone extinct
What do pyramids of biomass represent
Each bar reprsents the relative mass of a living material at a trophic level.
Largest bar has the producer
explain how biomass is lost between the different trophic levels.
Losses of biomass are due to:
• not all the ingested material is absorbed, some is egested as faeces
• some absorbed material is lost as waste, such as carbon dioxide and water in respiration and water and urea in urine.
Large amounts of glucose are used in respiration.
-not all of an organism gets eat for example bone so not all biomass is passed on to the next stage
approximately how much biomass is tranfered at each level
10 % of the biomass from each trophic level is transferred to the level above it.
How much of the total light is tranfered into energy
Producers are mostly plants and algae which transfer about 1 % of the incident energy from light for photosynthesis
What does effciency =
biomass tranfered to next level
/
Biomass available at previous level
How can the effciency of food production be increased
The efficiency of food production can be improved by restricting energy transfer from food animals to the environment (allowing more energy for growth so more food for the same input) This can be done by limiting their movement and by controlling the temperature of their surroundings.
Some animals are fed high protein foods to increase growth and some are factory farmed in small pens
What are ctrovercies and ethical obligations with effcient farming
Disease spreads easily in close conditions
It seems cruel unatural and uncormfortable
What are biological factors effecting food security?
Biological factors which are threatening food security include:
• the increasing birth rate has threatened food security in some countries
• changing diets in developed countries means scarce food resources are transported around the world
• new pests and pathogens that affect farming
• environmental changes that affect food production, such as widespread famine occurring in some countries if rains fail
• the cost of agricultural inputs
• conflicts that have arisen in some parts of the world which affect the availability of water or food.
Sustainable methods must be found to feed all people on Earth.
