Core Biodiversity Concepts
The variety of life at the genetic, species, and ecosystem levels.
What is biodiversity?
The total number of organisms of all species in a given area.
What is population size?
The mechanism by which populations evolve due to environmental pressures.
What is natural selection?
The ability of an ecosystem to recover after disturbance.
What is resilience?
This national park in Mozambique shows how human conflict altered elephant traits through selection pressure.
What is Gorongosa National Park?
The number of different species present in an ecosystem.
What is species richness?
A mathematical measure that combines richness and evenness into one value.
What is a biodiversity index?
The formation of new species from an existing population.
What is speciation?
A situation where a population passes through a drastic reduction in size, lowering genetic diversity.
What is a genetic bottleneck?
This individual tortoise represented the extinction of a Galápagos species due to low genetic diversity.
Who is Lonesome George?
How individuals are distributed among species in a community.
What is species evenness?
In the Blank Blank index what is D, N and n?
D= Diversity index
N= Total number of organisms of all species
n= Number of individuals of a particular species
What is Background extinction rate
The natural extinction rate of all species. 10 out of 100 going extinct per year
Individuals that are more adapted to their environment have an advantage and flourish and reproduce but those less adapted do not servive long enough to reproduce
What is the Natural selection?
Give one example of how humans can affect genetic diversity.
The three different types of diversity.
What is genetic, species and habitat diversity?
A biodiversity index where higher values indicate greater biodiversity.
What is Simpson’s Reciprocal Index?
A rapid reduction in biodiversity across many taxa in a short geological time.
What is a mass extinction?
Give one fact about Hotspots and one limitation
A lot I will decide.
What epoch are we in?
What are the Holocene or Anthropocene?
A species that has a disproportionately large effect on ecosystem structure and function.
What is a keystone species?
A sampling technique used to estimate biodiversity using repeated random sampling.
What is quadrat sampling?
The preserved remains or traces of past organisms used as evidence of evolution.
What are fossils?
Only found in one geographical location and nowhere else on earth.
What is Endemic species?
This farming practice reduces biodiversity by planting only one crop species over large areas.
What is monoculture agriculture?