Exam 4 Biodiversity Study Guide Ch 1 Biodiversity Biodiversity diversity etc Biodiversity is the variety of life and can refer to habitat species and genetic Developmental biodiversity differences in the cells within the body Genetic biodiversity differences in genes Geographical biodiversity differences in life between geographical regions Vast number of species of life There are between 1 5 and 2 million named species of living things on earth Plants 300 000 Fungi 100 000 Bacteria and Protista 100 000 Vertebrates 50 000 Insects 950 000 Species Species are a population or group of populations of organisms that are very similar to one another share a recent evolutionary history Important component of species is ability to interbreed Linnean system of classification binomial names two names Genus species ex Homo sapiens humans homo is the genus name and sapiens is the species Measuring Diversity Species Richness number of species occurring in a particular area Species Diversity combination of number of species and relative number of individuals of each species Know the differences between these two Two areas can have the same number of species so in this case the evenness of those species determines which is diverse Species are NOT spread out evenly throughout the world tropical areas typically have more species than temperate ones Ecosystems organisms Ecosystems are a combination of both the abiotic living and biotic nonliving Ecosystem services something such as oxygen fresh water or food that is provided by an ecosystem by its species Genomics Genomics is the new use of the comparative method Genome entire set of genetic material in a cell Allele particular version of a gene Source of genetic variation is individuals having different alleles Human Impact on Biodiversity Negative due to human interactions such as pollution agriculture etc We are currently going into the world s 6th mass extinction event Current extinction rates are between 10 and 100 times higher than those estimated from the fossil record Ch 2 Evolution Populational Thinking Populational Thinking is a way of looking at the world Views people animals bacteria cities etc as being parts of a population of similar things Individuals are bing influenced by many factors so it can be hard to say the cause of something is Typologically assigns different things to categories Evolution Evolution is based on variation with natural selection being the primary mechanism of evolution Characteristics that help organisms survive and reproduce will become prevalent in that environment Three things that must occur for evolution to occur competition more born than survive inheritance pass traits to offspring and variation individuals all have different traits Charles Darwin traveled on the HMS Beagle to the Galapagos Islands where he studies the plants and animals of the island and compared them to organisms found on other continents This prompted his idea of evolution Darwin s two main ideas were descent with modification and natural selection tree of life Darwin believed many of the species found on these islands had evolved from other mainlands and were similar to species found in South America and concluded that South America colonized these islands Evidence of evolution life on islands homology fossil record Alfred Wallace learned about biodiversity by traveling through the Amazon and Southeast Asia Stabilizing selection genetic diversity decreases as the population stabilizes on a particular trait value Disruptive selection population tend to diverge into two different groups Directional selection common in response to change in environment Reproductive Isolation allows for independent evolution Standard Deviation measure of the amount of variation in a population Species are formed through some sort of geographic isolation Population Variation can make the ling between cause smoking and effect cancer less straightforward Chapter 3 Ecology Ecology Ecology study of factors influencing the distribution and abundance of organisms The world is divided into many different biomes determined by three factors temperature precipitation and seasonality Seasonality is important in distinguishing the desert and Mediterranean Natural selection will act on different characteristics in different parts of the world habitats and even within an ecosystem Ecological Niches Ecological Niches is the ecological role of the species and allow organisms to split the environment into different pieces so many species can live within a community Can be a range of things microclimate pollution tolerance food eaten etc Community all the species in an area Parasitoids alter the behavior of their hosts ex Rat and toxoplasmosis Three main types of species interaction predation competition and mutualism Predation includes eating plants parasites and parasitoids Food Web Primary Producers make own food and carbon through photosynthesis Non photosynthesizing producers eat plants to gain carbon Decomposer feed on dead organic matter Only plants can bring energy into an ecosystem Nitrogen fixing bacteria are required to supply ecosystems with nitrogen Disturbances Influence the number of species within a community and leads to succession environment changes over time until it goes back to how it was An intermediate amount of disturbance high diversity Needed for Too little disturbance low diversity species become highly specialized and hard biodiversity for new species to come in Too much disturbance low diversity It doesn t allow for species to thrive before it is destroyed again ex Agriculture Chapter 4 Agriculture Artificial Selection Selective breeding humans choose individuals with desirable traits The smaller sample size leads bigger and more drastic results Selective breeding can lead to a loss of genetic diversity which is a problem due to a long term selection leading to vulnerability to diseases Genetic engineering modification allows much more specific manipulation of genes and is done through the use of viruses Monoculture Monoculture focuses on growing one plants species low diversity high disturbances which makes them vulnerable to pests and weeds Planting more species together can increase resistance to pests Ch 5 Medicine The immune system works by attacking non self organisms Acquired immunity the immune system learns to attack a specific thing to prevent reinfection by the same disease Three types of disease organisms Virus non living needs
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