biodiversity

Examples of biodiversity in the following topics:

• Loss of Biodiversity

  • Human activity is the driving force behind the current biodiversity crisis, which is causing great species loss in a short time period.
  • Biodiversity can be estimated at a number of levels of organization of living things.
  • These estimation indexes, which came from information theory, are most useful as a first step in quantifying biodiversity between and within ecosystems, yet they are less useful when the main concern among conservation biologists is simply the loss of biodiversity.
  • However, biologists recognize that measures of biodiversity, in terms of species diversity, may help focus efforts to preserve the biologically or technologically important elements of biodiversity.
  • The Lake Victoria cichlids provide an example through which we can begin to understand biodiversity.

• Biodiversity of Plants

  • Plant biodiversity, vital to ecosystems, food crops, and medicine production, is threatened by habitat destruction and species extinction.
  • Rapid deforestation and industrialization, however, threaten plant biodiversity.
  • Biodiversity of plants ensures a resource for new food crops and medicines.
  • Efforts to preserve biodiversity take several lines of action, from preserving heirloom seeds to barcoding species.
  • Indiscriminate logging, which leads to the clearing of whole habitats, has become a severe threat to plant biodiversity and has led to species extinction.

• Biodiversity Change through Geological Time

  • Biodiversity has been affected by five mass extinction periods, which greatly influenced speciation and extinction rates.
  • Paleontologists have identified five strata in the fossil record that appear to show sudden and dramatic losses in biodiversity known as mass extinctions.
  • The Permian extinction dramatically altered earth's biodiversity composition and the course of evolution.
  • Sudden and dramatic losses of biodiversity, called mass extinctions, have occurred five times.
  • Describe how biodiversity has changed through geological time as a result of mass extinctions

• Human Health and Biodiversity

  • Maintaining biodiversity ultimately helps maintain of human health; many medicines are derived from plants and, recently, animal toxins.
  • It is beneficial to humans, therefore, for medicinal purposes and many others, to maintain biodiversity.

• Climate Change and Biodiversity

  • The global warming trend is recognized as a major biodiversity threat, especially when combined with other threats such as habitat loss.

• Types of Biodiversity

  • Genetic diversity, ecosystem diversity, and human-derived diversity are measures of biodiversity that currently define life on earth.
  • Scientists generally accept that the term biodiversity describes the number and kinds of species in a location or on the planet.
  • Biologists have also identified alternate measures of biodiversity, some of which are important for planning how to preserve biodiversity.

• Habitat Loss and Sustainability

  • In the process of habitat destruction, the organisms that previously used the site are displaced or destroyed, reducing biodiversity.
  • Consider the exceptional biodiversity of Sumatra.
  • These animals are examples of the exceptional biodiversity of (c) the islands of Sumatra and Borneo.
  • Sustainable practices, which preserve environments for long-term maintenance and well-being, can help preserve habitats and ecosystems for greater biodiversity.
  • Describe the effects of habitat loss to biodiversity and concept of sustainability

• Ecological Restoration

  • Creating preserves reduces the pressure on human activities outside the preserves to be sustainable and non-damaging to biodiversity.
  • Habitat restoration holds considerable promise as a mechanism for restoring and maintaining biodiversity.
  • However, restoration can improve the biodiversity of degraded ecosystems.
  • Reintroducing wolves, a top predator, to Yellowstone National Park in 1995 led to dramatic changes in the ecosystem that increased biodiversity.
  • The results from the Yellowstone experiment suggest that restoring a keystone species can have the effect of restoring biodiversity in the community .

• Overharvesting

  • Overharvesting threatens biodiversity by degrading ecosystems and eliminating species of plants, animals, and other organisms.
  • Sustained overharvesting can lead to the destruction of the resource, and is one of the five main activities - along with pollution, introduced species, habitat fragmentation, and habitat destruction - that threaten global biodiversity today.
  • As mentioned above, sustained overharvesting is one of the primary threats to biodiversity.
  • Overharvesting not only threatens the resource being harvested, but can directly impact humans as well - for example by decreasing the biodiversity necessary for medicinal resources.
  • However, unregulated and inappropriate harvesting could potentially lead to overexploitation, ecosystem degradation, and loss of biodiversity; further, it can negatively impact the rights of the communities and states from which the resources are taken.

• Agricultural Diversity

  • Maintaining genetic biodiversity of wild species of our crops that are related to domesticated species ensures our continued food supply.
  • Resistance to disease is a chief benefit to maintaining crop biodiversity; lack of diversity in contemporary crop species carries similar risks.