Chapter 10 - Biodiversity

Question 1

What is the definition of species?

Answer 1

Organisms which are able to breed together and form fertile offspring

Question 2

What is courtship behaviour?

Answer 2

It is very often a necessary precursor to successful mating, and takes different forms depending on the species which are mating, for example the vibration patterns of flies

Question 3

Why is courtship behaviour so important?

Answer 3

For women, producing offspring is an energy intensive process and can result in death in one of the parents, therefore the mating organisms need to be sure that they are mating with:
an organism of the same species
an organism which has reached sexual maturity
the right sex
Some animals (typically mammals) need to form a pair bond with their mate so that they are not raising their child alone

Question 4

What is a phylogenetic classification system?

Answer 4

It is a hierarchical system of classification to identify ancestry and evolutionary relationships. Smaller groups are placed into larger groups without any overlaps. Each level of classification is a taxon, which together form taxa

Question 5

What taxa are used in our classification system?

Answer 5

Domain, kingdown, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species

Question 6

How are species named?

Answer 6

Binomial: genus (capital letter) then species (lower case)

Question 7

What is species richness?

Answer 7

The number of different species within a community

Question 8

How does species richness differ from biodiversity?

Answer 8

Species richness only looks at the number of species within a community, whereas biodiversity (or the index of diversity) looks at the number of individuals within each species, and how it compares to other species within the community

Question 9

What is the equation for the index of diversity, d?

Answer 9

d = N(N-1) / Sigma n(n-1) , where N is the total number of organisms and n is the number of organsisms of each species

Question 10

What purposely reduces biodiversity in certain areas?

Answer 10

Farming

Question 11

How can you compare genetic diversity within or between species?

Answer 11

Comparing base sequence of DNA
Comparing base sequence of mRNA
Comparing amino acid sequence of proteins
Comapring frequency of observable characteristics

Question 12

What do quantitative investigations of variation within a species involve?

Answer 12

Collecting data from random samples
Calculating a mean value of the collected data and the standard deviation of that mean
Interpreting mean values and their standard deviations