Biodiversity: variety of life on earth

Three Scales of Biodiversity

1. Genetic Diversity: Genetic variation among individuals in a population

2. Species Diversity: The number of species in a region or habitat (in a community or ecosystem)

   1. A species can interbreed and produce viable offspring.

3. Habitat/ Ecosystem Diversity: The variety of habitats that exist within a given region

Environmental Stressors

• Physical Stress (natural disasters)

• Wildfires

• Pollution

• Thermal stress

• Radiation

• Climatic (light, temperature)

• Biological (predation, competition, parasitism, lack of mates)

Bottleneck Effect: A drastic and sudden reduction in the size of a population leads to a change in the gene pool

• Can be natural or anthropogenic

Generalist species: can live under a wide range of biotic/abiotic conditions

Specialists species: live under a very narrow range of conditions or feed on one or a very small group of species

Species Richness: # of total species

Species Evenness: abundance of individuals within each species