2. Biodiversity is short form for biological diversity.
Biological diversity is the variety and variability
among living organisms and the ecological complexes
in which they occur.
Biodiversity is in a simplest term means " the variety
of life on earth". This variety can be measured on
several different levels, viz., Genetic, species and
ecosystem.
3. Archae
• Bacteria
• Eukaryota
Six Kingdoms of life are
•Archaebacteria - the Archaea bacteria which form one of the Domains of Life.
•Eubacteria - true bacteria and cyanobacteria.
•Protista - single-celled organisms such as algae and Protozoans.
•Fungi - uni-cellular and multicellular fungi, yeasts and moulds.
•Plantae - multicellular plants.
•Animalia - multicellular animals.
12. Species - species diversity is the variety of species in a given
region or area.
Estimates of global species diversity vary enormously
because it is so difficult to guess how many species there
may be in less well explored habitats such as untouched
rain forest.
Global species estimates range from 2 million to 100 million
species. Ten million is probably nearer the mark. Only 1.4
million species have been named. Of these, approximately
250,000 are plants and 750,000 are insects. New species
are continually being discovered every year. It has been
estimated that the deep sea floor may contain as many as a
million undescribed new species. To put it simply, we really
have absolutely no idea how many species there are!
13. A DNA “barcode” refers to a short region of a gene that changes over
evolutionary time at a rate that results in measurable distinctions among
species (analogous to the barcodes on products in stores). The Consortium for
the Barcode of Life [see CBOL] has brought together natural history museums
and other research organizations with the goal of producing DNA bar-coding
information for all named species on the planet.
DNA bar-coding programs can address two different goals. First, such
programs may be concerned about diagnosis and identification of alreadyknown species. Second, such programs may be interested in the discovery of
new species, including "cryptic" species that may not be revealed by
morphological or other characters. The second goal raises issues about species
concepts and the nature of DNA bar-coding based evidence for species status.
14. Genetic - variation between individuals of the same
species.
This includes genetic variation between individuals
in a single population , as well as variations
between different populations of the same species.
Genetic differences can now be measured using
increasingly sophisticated techniques. These
differences are the raw material of evolution.
15. Ecosystem - Communities of plants and animals, together with the physical
characteristics of their environment (e.g. geology, soil and climate) interlink together as
an ecological system, or 'ecosystem'. Ecosystem diversity is more difficult to measure
because there are rarely clear boundaries between different ecosystems and they grade
into one another. However, if consistent criteria are chosen to define the limits of an
ecosystem, then their number and distribution can also be measured.
Ecologist Jerry Franklin portrays ecosystems as having three primary attributes:
composition, structure, and function.
Ecosystem components:
Ecosystem structure:.
Ecosystem functions:
16. Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum : chordata
class
: Amphibia
Order : Anura / Salientia
Family : Ranidae
Genus : Rana
species : tigrina
Kingdom: Plantae
Phylum: Magnoliophyta
Class: Magnoliopsida
Order: Fagales
Family: Fagaceae
Genus: Quercus
Species: alba
17. Ecological degradation and its corollary - biodiversity loss - pose a serious threat to
development. 'Ecologically destructive economic activities are inefficient not merely
because of the resulting resource misallocation but also because of the (excessive)
scale of activity levels; excessive in relation to the limited availability of natural
capital when the latter is complementary to human-made capital'. In order to bring
about sustainable resource conservation and management, it is essential to adopt
several different approaches for managing our forests and biodiversity.
Protecting biodiversity does not merely involve setting aside chunks of area as
reserves. Instead, all the ecological processes that have maintained the area's
biodiversity such as predation, pollination, parasitism, seed dispersal, and herbivory,
involving complex interactions between several species of plants and animal needs
to be ensured . This, however, is possible only if reserves are large enough to
maintain these processes and some of the other crucial links in the web of life.