Biodiversity

• biological diversity, is the variety of life on the earth.

• provides natural ecosystem services such as air and water purification, renewal of topsoil, decomposition of wastes, and pollination.

• mans also use biodiversity as a source of food, medicine, building materials, and fuel.

It has four components:

1. Species diversity: Variety of organisms within a community •

2. Genetic diversity: Variety of genes within a population, or within a species on earth; greater genetic diversity means a population will have an easier time adapting to environmental pressures.

3. Ecosystem diversity: refers to the earth’s diversity of biological communities such deserts, grasslands, forests, mountains, oceans, lakes, rivers, and wetlands;

   • terrestrial (land) ecosystems are classified into Biomes: regions with distinct climates/species

4. Functional diversity: the variety of processes such as energy flow and matter cycling that occur within ecosystems as species interact with one another in food chains and food webs.

   • earth’s variety of genetic information, species, and ecosystems are needed for the evolution of new species and ecosystem services, as they respond to changing environmental conditions

cological niche (or simply niche)- a species’ way of life in a community and includes everything that affects its survival and reproduction