Chapter 8, Problem 1TYC

To determine

To explain: The term biodiversity and also describe the three levels of biodiversity.

Answer to Problem 1TYC

Biodiversity is the number of living things present in a biological organization system. The three levels of biodiversity include species, genetic and ecosystem biodiversity.

Explanation of Solution

Increase in the population of the human with their heavy resource consumption putting greater pressure over the plants and animals of Earth. Humans are diminishing the ultimate source of civilizations happiness and wealth.

Biodiversity is also known as biological diversity. It is the variety of life present at all levels of biological organization and includes diversity in genes, species, population, communities and ecosystem. Biological diversity is a concept as “multifaceted as life itself”.

There are three levels of biodiversity described below as:

1) Species diversity: The presence of varied number of species in a particular location or particular ecosystem is defined as the species richness or species diversity. The large number of each individual species represents the abundance of species diversity. Each species has a numerous roles in an ecosystem which is important to maintain the ecological balance. The loss of any species either due to environmental condition or through human activity disturb the ecological balance

2) Genetic diversity: Genetic diversity is defined as the total number of genes present in a gene pool that is the number of different genes as well as a different alleles of genes present in the species. Genetic diversity is important to maintain the variation within the population. In small population the genetic variability among the species is very low. This also affects the heterozygosity of species. Thus, the species present in small population are genetically homozygous and there might be chances that these species get extinct.

3) Ecosystem biodiversity: The ecological diversity represents the living of different species in different habitat like some species present in aquatic or marine environment, some species present in terrestrial habitat and so on. Each biological species contribute to ecosystem productivity no matter how small their population is.