biodiversity
(noun)
the diversity (number and variety of species) of plant and animal life within a region
Examples of biodiversity in the following topics:
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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.
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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.
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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
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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
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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 .
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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.
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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.