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Biodiversity

Biodiversity. Dominic Patel Myrofora Panagi. What is Biodiversity?.

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Biodiversity

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  1. Biodiversity Dominic Patel MyroforaPanagi

  2. What is Biodiversity? Biodiversity is “The full range of natural variety and variability within and among living organisms, and the ecological and environmental complexes in which they occur. It encompasses multiple levels of organization, including genes, species, communities and ecosystems.” Basically this means that biodiversity is the variety of life.

  3. Categories of Biodiversity

  4. Features of Biodiversity • Responsible for the structure of the ecosystems and habitats that support essential living resources. • Provides the basic human needs. • Composes ecosystems that maintainoxygen in the air, enrich the soil, purify the water, protect against flood and storm damage and regulate climate. • Recreational, cultural, spiritual, aesthetic values.

  5. Measurement • It is difficult to quantify precisely the measure of biodiversity althoughRobert Whittaker first proposed the metricsused to measure species-level biodiversity,especially focusing on species richness. • It is important to determine measurements of biodiversity to among other things help with conservation efforts.

  6. Species Richness As said before species richness is used most commonly as a measurement of biodiversity, this is because: • “It is a good surrogate as it acts as an ‘integrator’ of many facets of differences in biodiversity. • Frequently measureable in practice. • A great amount of information is already available on patterns in species richness.

  7. Biodiversity Hotspot The term hotspot was first identified by Dr. Norma and described as being: A region with a high level of endemic species that is threatened with destruction. Characteristics of hotspot: • Contains at least 0.5% or 1500 species of vascular plant as endemics • Has lost at least 70% of its primary vegetation • A hot spot occurs near to dense human habitation • Most of them are in the tropics, especially forests There are 25 major biodiversity hotspots around the world.

  8. Biodiversity: • Provides food • Meat, fruit, nuts, vegetables, food colourants, preservatives, etc. • Medicine • 5000 species of plants have been identified as being potential sources for drugs. • Biological control • The use of endemic animals to control the populations of introduced animals.

  9. Biodiversity cont.: • Recreational harvesting • Harvesting of plants • Fishing and hunting • Ecotourism • Founded on the diversity of biological organisms

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