Biodiversity Overview Quiz

Biodiversity

• Biodiversity is the variation within and between all forms of life.
• It can be assessed at three levels: ecosystem, species, and genetic diversity.
• High biodiversity enhances ecosystem resilience and allows them to resist change.

Ecosystem Diversity

• This is the range of different ecosystems or habitats within a particular area or region.
• Areas with a large number of diverse habitats generally have high biodiversity, like a coral reef.
• Areas with only one or two habitats usually have low biodiversity, like a large sandy desert.

Species Diversity

• High species richness indicates a high number of different species in an ecosystem.
• Evenness of abundance, known as species evenness, also plays a role in species diversity.
• Greater the number of species and more evenly distributed the individuals, the greater the species diversity.
• Ecosystems with high species diversity are more stable and resilient to changes.

Genetic Diversity

• Genetic diversity within a species is the variation of alleles and genes in its genome.
• Although individuals of the same species have the same genes, they may have different alleles for each gene.
• Genetic diversity is measured by the proportion of genes with multiple alleles and the number of possible alleles per gene.
• Genetic diversity can differ within and between populations.
• Genetic diversity helps populations adapt to changes in the environment, biotic (new predators, pathogens, competition) and abiotic (temperature, humidity, rainfall).
• Small and isolated populations, due to inbreeding, have limited genetic diversity, leading to high proportion of homozygous individuals and potentially more genetic diseases.