BIODIVERSITY

MEANING
 It is most frequently qualified as the number of It is species.
 The variability among living organisms from all sources
including inter alia(*), terrestrial (**), marine and other aquatic
ecosystems and the ecological complexes of which they are a part.
 It also includes diversity within species, between species, and
ecosystem.

TERRESTRIAL – dry land

INRET ALIA – among all
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IMPORTANCE
•Functioning of all the natural & human – engineered
ecosystem

•It provides free of charge extended ecosystem service to

human society.

•Living organism play central role in the cycle of major

elements like carbon, nitrogen, and water in the
environment.
•It is specifically important for those cycles because it
require numerous interacting species.
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DOMAIN / GROUP OF ORGANISMS
On the basis of shared characteristic into hierarchical groups I.e.
TAXA
• Bacteria
Which are microorganisms lacking a cellular nucleus or other membrane
bound.

• Microorganisms
- Recent discovered geographical area
- It is of primarily extreme environments as hot spring
- superficially similar to bacteria fundamentally different at biochemical &
genetic level.

• Eukarya
- Includes 4 kingdoms (protists, animals, plants & fungi)
- it is divided into number of Phyla- II/Biodiversity
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MEASUREMENT

DISTRIBUTION OF BIODIVERSITY
Species diversity varies systematically across the globe with latitude, longitude,
and altitude (or its equivalent, depth, in the oceans). The trend toward higher
species diversity in the tropics is perhaps the most conspicuous biogeographic
pattern in nature, and is sufficiently general to have been considered a "rule". In
most marine groups, diversity is maximal in the Indo-West Pacific.
 
Superimposed on these large-scale global patterns are local hot spots of diversity
generated by geographical features, by quirks of geologic history, or by mixing of
biotas from different biogeographic provinces. These bio-diversity hot spots have
become important (and often controversial) foci for conservation efforts.

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MEASUREMENT Contt…

ECOLOGICAL CONTROL ON BIODIVERSITY

A central question in explaining these patterns of diversity is determining the
relative importance of long-term evolutionary processes -- the balance between
origin and extinction of species -- and local ecological processes of species
interactions.
 
The general similarity among diversity patterns of different taxa with latitude and
region suggests that these patterns are controlled primarily by factors operating
over large spatial and temporal scales. Ultimately, the number of species in a
region is set by a balance between origin through speciation, loss through
extinction, and migration of species among regions, all of which operate over
long (geologic) time scales.
 
Conversely, on local spatial scales and over ecological time scales on the order of
a few generations of organisms, a wealth of evidence shows that diversity often
varies systematically with habitat area, habitat heterogeneity, disturbance, and
availability of energy (i.e., productivity) and other resources, notably water in
terrestrial ecosystems.
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