Biodiversity
The variety of ecosystems in a specific area, including the types of habitats, communities, and ecological processes that exist there.
What is ecosystem diversity?
A characteristic that helps an organism survive in its environment.
What is adaptation?
The stock of different genes in an interbreeding population.
What is gene pool?
The tangible goods or resources that people obtain from ecosystems to meet basic needs such as food, water, shelter, and fuel.
What is provisioning services?
The presence in or introduction into the environment of substance or thing that has harmful or poisonous effects.
What is pollution?
The number of different species in a given area, such as a habitat, ecosystem, or landscape.
What is species richness?
A permanent change in an organism's DNA sequence that can be passed on to offspring.
What is mutation?
A species of animal or plant that is seriously at risk of extinction.
What is endangered species?
The benefits that ecosystems provide by regulating natural phenomena.
What is regulating services?
Long-term shifts in temperatures and weather patterns.
What is climate change?
The variation in genetic makeup among individuals within a species or population.
What is genetic diversity?
The continued existence of organisms which are best adapted to their environment with the extinction of others, as a concept in the Darwinian theory of evolution.
What is survival of the fittest?
A rare event that occurs when a large number of species die out over a short period of time.
What is mass extinction?
Tasks or activities that help a main activity function properly.
What is supporting services?
A non-native organism that can be a plant, animal, disease, or parasite that has been introduced to an area where it doesn't naturally live.
What is invasive species?
A species on which other species in an ecosystem largely depend, such that if it were removed the ecosystem would change drastically.
What is keystone species?
The movement of genetic material between populations of organisms, which can introduce new genetic variation and change allele frequencies.
What is gene flow?
A set of mechanisms, behaviors, and physiological processes that prevent different species from breeding and producing healthy offspring.
What is reproductive isolation?
Non-material benefits that people get from ecosystems through their interactions with the environment.
What is cultural services?
The process of altering or eliminating natural habitats to the point where they can no longer support the plants and animals that live there.
What is habitat destruction?
What is endemic species?
A random process that causes changes in the frequency of gene variants, or alleles, in a population over time.
What is genetic drift?
Occurs when a population's size is significantly reduced, which limits the genetic diversity of the species.
What is genetic bottleneck?
A regulating ecosystem services performed by bees.
What is pollination?
The unsustainable removal of organisms from their natural environment, such as plants, animals, or fish, to the point of diminishing returns.
What is overharvesting?