Components of Biodiversity Flashcards
1
Q
What are the 3 components of biodiversity?
A
Genetic diversity
Species diversity
Ecosystem diversity
2
Q
What is genetic diversity?
A
The number and frequency of all the alleles within a population.
If one population of a species dies out
then the species may have lost some of
its genetic diversity, and this may limit its
ability to adapt to changing conditions.
3
Q
What is species diversity?
A
The number of different species in an ecosystem (the species richness) and the proportion of each species in the ecosystem (the relative abundance).
A community with a dominant species has
a lower species diversity than one with the
same species richness but no particularly
dominant species.
4
Q
What is ecosystem diversity?
A
The number of distinct ecosystems within a defined area.
