ESS Topic 3.1 - Biodiversity idk

Three levels of biodiversity

Habitat diversity, species diversity, and genetic diversity.

Ecosystem resilience

The ability of an ecosystem to avoid tipping points.

Tipping point

A level of change beyond which an ecosystem cannot naturally recover.

Evolution

Cumulative change in heritable characteristics of a population or species.

Natural selection

The main driving mechanism behind evolutionary change.

Adaptation

Heritable phenotypic characteristics that help an organism survive in its habitat.

Allele

Different versions or variants of a gene.

Mutation

A change in gene base sequence that creates new alleles.

Role of high species biodiversity

Provides diverse food chains, making ecosystems more resilient.

Key factors of natural selection

Variation, overproduction, competition, and differential survival or reproduction.

Species richness

The number of different species in a community.

Species evenness

How similar the population sizes of each species are in a community.

Simpson's reciprocal index

A quantitative measure of species diversity used to compare ecosystems or monitor changes over time.

N = total number of individuals

n = individuals per species

Geographic separation

Physical barriers like mountains, volcanoes, or distance that isolate populations and lead to speciation.

Galapagos finches

Darwin's famous example of species adapting to distinct environments on different islands.

Citizen science

The contribution of data by the public and voluntary agencies to monitor global and regional biodiversity.

How is data collected to aid conservation efforts?

Citizen science and the work of voluntary and government-funded agencies. The training of

indigenous people and others, such as parabiologists, is also used to gather information for use

in conservation management.