Biodiversity. Biodiversity Is The Variability Among Living

It is the observed process of change in the species structure of an ecological community over time. Within any community some species may become less abundant over some time interval, or they may even vanish from the ecosystem altogether. Similarly, over some time interval, other species within the community may become more abundant, or new species may even invade into the community from adjacent ecosystems. This observed change over time in what is living in a particular ecosystem is "ecological succession".

Read "Lab 3: Biodiversity." This lab will allow you to investigate how various organisms alter their environments. Additionally, it will allow you to

Within communities, organisms compete for limited resources (food, space, mates, shelter). 613 of our native species (plants, birds, fish), compete with 240 introduced plant species, 19 introduced bird species, 9 introduced mammals and 2 amphibians. It is estimated that we have lost 30 native bird species due to this competition.

Ecosystems can be impacted by many factors such as climate, natural disasters, human pollution, water shortage etc. All of these are the factors that controls an ecosystem’s stability, productivity, and sustainability because these factors can kill, drive out, intoxicate, and destroy species’ natural habitats. These factors are spontaneous and temporarily and these can impact a very specific species which in turn can cause the collapse of an entire species. These species are call the Keystone species and they are organisms that are basically the arch or the support of the food chain in an ecosystem. They are special because without them, the population will be impacted negatively, such as too much overgrazing, overpopulation, and lack of food or predators for some animals. Keystone species are important

Variation is the forefront for progression of a species. All species have wide varieties of

Surprisingly, scientists have a better understanding of how many stars there are in the galaxy than they have of how many species there are on Earth. Estimates vary from 2 million to 100 million species, with a best estimate of somewhere near 10 million; only 1.4 million of these species have actually been named. Today, rainforests occupy only 2 percent of the entire Earth's surface and 6 percent of the world's land surface, yet these remaining lush rainforests support over half of our planet's wild plants and trees and one-half of the world's wildlife. Hundreds and thousands of these rainforest species are being

Evolution rarely follows a straight line from species to species. Instead, evolution is more like a growing tree. This tree is called a phylogenetic tree, phylo meaning race, and genetic meaning genes and heredity. As this tree continues to thrive, more branches begin to grow and other branches begin to die. Once a branch dies, no new branches can grow from it because the branch represents a species and when a species dies, the species cannot evolve into subspecies. Due to this, species do change over time because species compete for limited resources, new adaptations can be passed to the next generation, and the environment changes all the time. These are all proven by numerous types of evidence that are found over a period of time.

Diversity increases in similar habitats across the globe by the process of convergent evolution (Withgott & Brennan, 2011). This occurs when similar environmental conditions existing in different regions of the globe cause organisms to develop very similar characteristics. Examples include the many

Most evolutionary changes are small and do not lead to the creation of a new species. When populations change in small ways over time, the process is called microevolution. Microevolution results in changes within a species.

Costa Rica makes up nearly 0.03% of Earth’s surface, but the country makes up nearly four percent of the total species estimated worldwide. Costa Rica is one of the twenty countries with the largest biodiversity in the world. (Lobo 1) Biodiversity is the variety of organisms in the world (Becher 1). The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) reported that seventy-five percent of Earth’s fisheries are over exploited, seventy-five percent of genetic diversity of agriculture has been lost, and one-third of coral reefs are threatened with extinction (NASA 1). Humans are responsible for altering approximately forty percent of Earth’s land surface (Becher xiii). Since Costa Rica is one of the countries with the most biodiversity in

The tropical rainforest biome is an ecosystem that covers about seven percent of the Earth's surface. They are found all over the world, but the majority of the tropical rainforest is found in South America in Brazil. This ecosystem experiences high average temperatures and a significant amount of rainfall.

Furthermore, now that evolution has been acknowledge, we are learning more about the world and its species. For instance, scientists have hypothesized that after the ice age, there was more variety of species. Since the ice caps began to melt as temperature increased, water levels also increased which caused species to move to

relative isolation leading to a high rate of endemism, or plants and animals that have evolved to be

Biological evolution is an ongoing process defined as ‘descent with modification’. Theories of evolution are founded upon the central concept that all life on Earth has a common ancestor. By the transformation of species throughout time, including changes within a species and the origin of new species, this ancestor gave life to the diversity of organisms seen today (Losos, 2015). This diversity includes changes in gene frequency between generations, or the descent of various species from a common ancestor over many generations (Museum of Paleontology). The fundamental model of evolution is deduced from fossil records and evolutionary change (natural selection), and inferred by the examination of phylogeny. Therefore, evolution is summarised

Evolution refers to change over time as species modifies and separate to produce several offspring species.