Biodiversity

Species diversity is characterised by the diversity within an ecological community (McGinley, 2014) that incorporates both the total number of species in a region and the degree to which the abundance of each of the species is similar; these concepts are termed species richness and species evenness respectively. The Simpson’s Index of Diversity is a measure of the biodiversity within a community and is derived the number of species and their relative abundances (Knox et al., 2014). The Simpson’s Index of Diversity score ranges from 0-1; the higher the score indicates a higher diversity.

As defined by “Environmental Science- 14th Edition”, an ecosystem is “a set of organisms within a defined area or volume that interact with one another and with their environment of nonliving matter and energy.” I will be using the computer simulation to alter the interactions of the organisms in the ecosystem to see what changes occur.

An ecosystem is a community of interacting organisms and their environment. If one of the organisms is disturbed, it can change the trophic cascade which is a sequence of impacts down the food chain. Hannibal supports this statement by writing “keeping these connections going ensures healthy, functioning ecosystems, which in turn support human life.”(578) An example of this is if all of the beavers died the other organisms would go somewhere else or die due because they no longer will have dams to support their ideal habitat.

Ecology: The study of the interactions between organisms and the other living and nonliving components of their environment.

Ecosystem: a system formed by the interaction of a community of organisms with their environment

-Ecosystem: any environment containing living organisms interacting with each other and with the non-living parts of that environment.

Ecology is the branch of biology that studies the interactions of organisms with each other, and with their physical and chemical environments. Another main topic discussed in this chapter is ecosystems. Ecosystems are habitats or areas that consists of two basic components. Ecosystems include such things as biotic and abiotic components. Biotic components are living organisms within an ecosystem and abiotic components are things like sunlight, temperature, and rainfall. Within an ecosystem are producer and autotrophs. Producers and autotrophs consist of plants, algae, and bacteria. These two organisms obtain food from inorganic materials and light energy. As to where consumer and heterotrophs obtain energy by eating plants or the animals that eat the plants. An ecosystem is made up of several different parts. Each part of an ecosystem is different from the other. None of these parts within the ecosystem rely on the other. They are all interdependent being either predators or

So we will talk about biodiversity first. Biodiversity is a group of different living organisms from around the world in one community. And biodiversity helps the biosphere because they can produce better and help other plants and humans in need. Some plants and trees have different characteristics regarding to their species.

An ecosystem is the dynamic complex of plant, animal and micro-organism communities and their non-living environment as a functional unit. Ecosystems are systems through which incoming solar energy is captured and channelled through a hierarchy of life forms. Each ecosystem has its own characteristic plant and animal community.

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

Genetic diversity can help a species survive. The greater the number of different alleles that all members of a species possess, the greater the genetic diversity of that species.

An ecosystem is a community of living organisms coinciding with the nonliving components of a specific environment. One example includes the freshwater ecosystem contributing to Earth’s aquatic ecosystems. They include lakes and ponds, rivers, streams, springs and wetlands consisting of low salt concentrations (University of California

Background Information- In this lab we explored how biodiversity can be loss in an ecosystem due to random events and invasive species. To begin with, “Biodiversity is the varieties of organisms and complex ecological relationships that give the biosphere its unique, productive characteristics.”(Cunningham 227) It is usually recognized by species. Biodiversity is important because certain

Biodiversity presents occurrence of variety of species and their natural community in which they live. By the definition it is “The degree of variation of life forms within a given species, ecosystem, biome, or an entire planet. It is a measure of the health of ecosystems and is in part a function of climate.” (Rutherford) Ecosystem is on the other hand, “ community and its abiotic environment”( Rutherford). Biodiversity exists in every ecosystem, weather it is big one, or just ecosystem of one garden, it has the same importance because without it nature loses its ability to perform major functions needed for life on Earth, as it is oxygen production. Trough this investigation, two different ecosystems will be explored and

Humans have existed since 200,000 years but the Earth has existed around 4.5 billion years. Nature has provided us with everything we have today - food, medicines, materials, chemicals, metals, minerals etc. It can only keep providing us when we maintain the right environment for it to exist. This environment depends on the biodiversity of Earth. The number of species of plants, animals and microorganisms and the various genes in these species, different ecosystems such as deserts, rainforests and coral reefs are all part of a biologically diverse Earth. Hence Biodiversity impacts everything. We will discuss how Biodiversity plays a crucial role on social, environmental, and economic factors. We will also discuss what