Understanding Biodiversity

Biodiversity

• It encompasses the variety of all living species on Earth, including bacteria, fungi, plants, and animals.

Genetic Biodiversity

• Refers to the range of genetic characteristics within a species.
• The diversity within a species acts as the main reason for the distinguishing characteristic expressed by each individual.
• Maintaining high genetic diversity enables species to adapt to future environmental changes and avoid inbreeding.
• It strengthens the ability of species and populations to resist diseases, pests, climate changes, and other stresses.
• Gene variations underpin their capacity to evolve and their flexibility to adapt.
• Declining genetic diversity in food and agriculture makes food crops and livestock more susceptible to disease.
• Declining genetic diversity in food and agriculture makes farmers more vulnerable to crop failure.
• The FAO has warned about the effects of declining genetic diversity.

Species Diversity

• It's the number of different species present in an ecosystem
• Species diversity plus the relative abundance of each of those species.

Species Richness

• The number of different species present in an ecosystem.

Species Evenness

• Relative abundance of individuals of each of those species.

Importance of Species Diversity

• A more diverse ecosystem tends to be more productive.
• Greater species richness and productivity makes an ecosystem more sustainable and stable.
• The more diverse the ecosystem, the greater its ability to withstand environmental stresses like drought or invasive infestations.
• Species richness makes an ecosystem able to respond to any catastrophe.
• In species-rich communities, each species can use a different portion of resources available as per their requirements.
• Rich diversity is important for the survival of mankind.
• Healthy biodiversity has innumerable benefits like nutrients storage and recycling.
• Healthy biodiversity aids soil formation and protection from erosion.
• Healthy biodiversity promotes absorption of harmful gases and climate stability.
• Humans get many products from nature like fruits, cereals, meat, wood, fiber, raisin, dyes, medicine, and antibiotics.
• The Amazon forest is estimated to produce 20% of total oxygen on Earth through photosynthesis.
• Pollinators, symbiotic relationships, and decomposers each perform unique roles that are irreplaceable.
• Diversity in large numbers helps in large scale interaction among organisms such as in the food web.
• In the nitrogen cycle, bacteria, and plants have a crucial relationship.
• Earthworms contribute to soil fertility.
• Other benefits of species diversity include recreation, tourism, education, and research.

Ecosystem Biodiversity

• It's the variety of different habitats, communities, and ecological processes.

Ecological Niche

• Describes the role an organism has in a community.
• A species' niche is all of the environmental factors and interspecies relationships that influence the species.
• A species' niche describes how it fits within its environment.
• The ecological niche is the interaction between a species and all the biotic and abiotic elements that impact ecology.
• Importance of an ecological niche permits the coexistence of several species.
• Coexistence of species occurs usually without intense competition and under scarce shared resources.
• Facilitates species to be aware of their position in the food chain and ecology.
• The number of niches in an ecosystem defines the number of species present, thereby defining the variety of the place.
• There is less biodiversity and an unbalanced ecosystem without ecological niches.
• Helps to comprehend better how communities relate to local environmental factors, fitness, and characteristic evolutions.
• Helps to comprehend communities relation with interactions between predators and prey.
• Ecological niche modeling uses algorithms to process environmental data, contributes to conservation projects, and plans ecological reserves.

COMPETITIVE EXCLUSION PRINCIPLE

• Two or more species with limited resources and similar resource-use patterns can't coexist in a stable habitat.
• One species is better suited and would outcompete or otherwise exterminate the others.

Components of an Organism's Environment

• The environment that an organism lives in affects it.
• The organism's behavior patterns, whether active during the day (diurnal) or night (nocturnal), are key.
• Organisms draw resources, like food, from their environment.
• Interaction patterns with other species in the community, such as predator-prey or host-microbe relationships, are important.

Fundamental Niches

• Examines the full spectrum of conditions in which a certain species might be able to survive, grow, and reproduce.
• Its size is large.
• It emphasizes the various roles of species.

Realized Niches

• The particular ecological settings where a species coexists.
• It outlines the species' experiences and how it copes with certain circumstances.
• It takes competition into account along with all other biotic and abiotic ecological interactions.
• Its size is small, and is considered a subset of a fundamental niche.

Symbiosis

• Is the relationship between different species living in close association with one another.

Predation

• When one organism hunts and kills another organism for food.
• The predator captures, kills, and consumes another individual.
• The prey is the individual that is killed.

Adaptations for Predators

• Rattlesnakes can acutely smell and have heat-sensitive pits.
• Spiders build webs.
• Carnivores have sharp teeth.
• Tigers have a striped camouflaged coat.

Adaptations for Animal Prey

• Poisonous prey warn predators with bright colors.
• Mimicry means a harmless species resembles a poisonous or distasteful one.
• Prey stay in herds and run away.
• Camouflage helps prey species.

Adaptations of Plants

• Physical defenses of plants include sharp thorns, spines, sticky hairs, and tough leaves.
• Chemical defenses, or secondary compounds, include poisons that can be irritating or bad-tasting.
• Poisons include Stychnine and nicotine (toxic to insects), and those found in poison ivy and poison oak.
• Medicines can be manufactured using plants.
• Morphine, atropine, codeine, taxol, and quinine all come from plants.

Parasitism

• One organism, the host, is harmed while the other organism, the parasite, benefits.
• Parasitism usually does not result in death.
• Two types of parasites exist: ectoparasites (external) and endoparasites (internal).
• Parasites have many adaptations.

Competition

• Competition results from fundamental niche overlap.
• It involves two or more species using the same limited resource.
• Competitive exclusion happens when one species is eliminated from a community.
  • Inter-specific competition occurs when two different species compete for a limited resource.
  • Intra-specific competition occurs when members of the same species compete for a limited resource.

Competition and Community Structure

• Resource partitioning refers to a pattern of resource use in which species reduce their use of shared resources.
• Many species of warblers eat insects; If two species of warbler lived in the same area, they would compete for the same food and each population would suffer. To limit competition, one warbler will eat at the top of a tree, and another will eat near the bottom of a tree.
• Character displacement is the evolution of anatomical differences that reduce competition between similar species.
  • Beak size in finches is an example.
• Ecological equivalents are species that occupy the same niche, but live in different geographical regions. -Poison frogs are an example as mantella frogs are of Madagascar while poison dart frogs are of South America. -Both have brightly colored skin that secretes a highly poisonous toxin to ward off predators. -Both prey on similar insects and live in similar habitats.

Amensalism

• Is a type of biological interaction where one species causes harm to another organism without any cost or benefits to itself.

Mutualism

• A cooperative relationship occurs in which both species derive some benefit in mutualism.
• Acacias provide shelter for ants in their thorns and nectar in extrafloral nectarines to their symbiotic ants.
• In turn, the ants protect the plant by attacking large mammalian herbivores and stem-boring beetles that damage the plant.
• For the bees, the pollen and nectar from many flowers is an important source of fats, proteins, vitamins, and minerals while the nectar is a source of energy.
• As bees travel from one blossom to another, pollen clings to their fuzzy bodies which is then transferred to the other flowers of the same species thus pollinating or fertilizing the plant.
• Plants then can produce their own fruits and seeds.

Commensalism

• Interaction in which one species benefits and the other is neither helped nor harmed.
• The Cattle Egret feeds on a wide range of prey, particularly insects, especially grasshoppers, crickets, flies (adults and maggots), and moths, as well as spiders, frogs, and earthworms.
• Cattle Egrets are usually found with cattle (cape buffalo in this instance), and other large grazing and browsing animals, and catches small creatures disturbed by the mammals.

Protocooperation

• A type of ecological interaction where both species benefit in the interaction is not obligatory for survival.

Roles of Species

• Generalist species have broad niches.
• Generalist species can live in many places and can eat a variety of foods.
• Generalist species can thrive in rapidly changing environmental conditions.
• Examples of Generalist species include cockroaches, rats, mice, flies, white-tailed deer, raccoons, humans, etc.
• Specialist species have narrow niches and are found in one type of habitat and feed on a few types of habitats.
• Specialist species are prone to disturbances in the environmental condition and can't tolerate the change and environmental stress.
• Native species live and thrive in a particular ecosystem.
• Non-native species immigrate deliberately or accidentally to an ecosystem, spreading rapidly if they find a favorable niche.
• Invasive species compete with other species for food and habitat.
• Indicator species serve as biological smoke alarms
• Indicator species provide early warnings of damage to an ecosystem.
• Keystone species play an important role in maintaining species diversity and integrity of an ecosystem.
• Ecosystem engineers, mutualists, and predators are all types of keystone species.

Threats to Species Diversity

• Habitat loss and fragmentation due to pollution and urbanization and various human activities majorly cause of loss in species diversity along with plants and animals extinct.
• Over-exploitation of natural resources leads to the extinction of species, with Steller's sea cow, the passenger pigeon, and many marine fishes are over harvested for examples.
• Alien species invasions occur when alien species are introduced deliberately or accidentally, some become invasive, leading to the extinction of indigenous species.
• Co-extinctions occur when a species becomes extinct and species associated with a particular extinct species also becomes extinct.

Conservation of Species Diversity

• Biodiversity rich regions are protected as biosphere reserves, national parks, and sanctuaries in in-situ conservation.
• Ex-situ conservation involves brings the animals under human controlled environment such as a zoo, or oceanarium.