GIS 1004: The Biosphere

The Biosphere

• The biosphere is the "life zone" of the Earth, including all living organisms, organic matter, and extending from the atmosphere to the depths of the oceans.
• It is structured into a hierarchy known as a food chain, with energy and nutrients transferred from one level to the next.

Bioresources

• Bioresources are any resources of biological origin, excluding fossil fuels and rocks of biological origin.
• Examples of bioresources include biomass, wood, agricultural crops, herbaceous and woody energy crops, municipal organic wastes, and manure.
• Bioresources are important for national progress and economic activities, and their management and utilization are crucial for human welfare.

Biodiversity

• Biodiversity refers to the variety of living things, including different species, habitats, and genes.
• There are estimated to be between 1.7 and 2.0 million species, with some estimates suggesting up to 100 million.
• Biodiversity is essential for human health, as it provides ecosystem services such as producing oxygen, removing CO2, decomposing waste, and preventing erosion and flooding.
• We benefit from biodiversity in various ways, including through medicines, genetic resources, and aesthetic and cultural values.

Benefits of Biodiversity

• Genetic resources: 350,000 species of angiosperm on earth, with 80,000 possessing food value and 3,000 used as food sources.
• Livestock genetic resources: important for crop improvement, increased production, disease resistance, and drought tolerance.
• Potential new food sources: from plants and animals.
• Medicines from plants and animals: 50% of medicinal compounds are obtained from plants, and often difficult or expensive to artificially synthesize.
• Bioenergy and biofuels: biomass, maize, saccharum, miscanthus, and salix.

Impacts of Human Activity on the Biosphere and Bioresources

• The increasing size of the human population and industrialization have far-reaching effects on the biosphere, including extinction of individual species and global climate change.
• Humans are indirectly/directly increasing the rate of species extinctions through habitat destruction, overharvesting, and introducing exotic species.

Threatened Species

• Endangered species: face extinction in all or part of their range.
• Threatened species: likely to become endangered in the near future.
• Endemic species: evolved in one place and found nowhere else.

Global Impact of Human Activities

• Human activities threaten entire ecosystems, including desertification, deforestation, air pollution, acid rain, water pollution, and trash in aquatic ecosystems.
• Desertification: poor agricultural practices turn grasslands or woodlands into deserts.
• Deforestation: human activities strip woodlands of trees, leading to flooding, landslides, and increased atmospheric CO2.
• Pollution: human activities generate pollutants that kill animals and damage ecosystems, including plastics, chemicals, and heavy metals.

Protecting Bioresources and Biodiversity

• Stop overharvesting and adopt sustainable yield practices.
• Protect habitats through refuges, parks, and preserves.
• Ecological restoration can help actively recreate or renew a diverse natural ecosystem.
• National policies, such as Malaysia's National Policy on Biological Diversity, can help conserve and sustainably utilize biological diversity.

This quiz is about the biosphere, the 'life zone' of the Earth, including all living organisms and organic matter. It covers the structure of the biosphere, food chains, and the transfer of energy and nutrients.