Chapter 9. Chapter 9: Biodiversity
What is biodiversity and why is it important?
Guiding Question 9.1
What is biodiversity, and why is it important?
Why You Should Care
Biodiversity refers collectively to the variation in genes among individuals of a species, the number of species in an area, and the variation of ecosystems within a region. Understanding the importance of biodiversity is a journey for most people. The first stop is the pharmacy; it is understandably easy to appreciate biodiversity as a potential source for cures to diseases. The next stop is understanding the need to protect ecosystem services. Maintaining biodiversity is like the party game where players have to remove wooden blocks out of a stack: You never know which block will cause the whole stack to tumble down when it is removed. It is similarly difficult to predict the effect of losing species to ecosystems. Alligators, the keystone species of the Everglades, at one time were hunted without legal limits and their numbers dwindled to the point of them being threatened. For a long time, people considered the situation to be the removal of a pest. We know now that allowing alligators to go extinct could have been disastrous because properly functioning ecosystems provide invaluable services like clean water to all organisms, including humans. The last stop on the journey is appreciating the intrinsic value of biodiversity. Many consider biodiversity a source of beauty and wonder and consider the permanent loss of genetic variation or species a tragedy.
Test Your Vocabulary
Choose the correct term for each of the following definitions:
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Benefits that are important to all life, including humans, provided by functional ecosystems; includes such things as nutrient cycles, air and water purification, and ecosystem goods, such as food and fuel. | |
| The variety of life on Earth; it includes species, genetic, and ecological diversity. | |
| An object’s or species’ worth, based on its mere existence; it has an inherent right to exist. | |
| The heritable variation among individuals of a single population or within the species as a whole. | |
| The variety of species, including how many are present (richness) and their abundance relative to each other (evenness). | |
| An object’s or species’ worth, based on its usefulness to humans. | |
| The variety within an ecosystem’s structure, including many communities, habitats, niches, and trophic levels. |
1.
Species diversity has two components (pick two):
Species evenness
Species variation
Species richness
Species deviations
Species niches
Activity results are being submitted...