the large number and diversity of organisms on earth is known as biodiversity.
the large number and diversity of organisms on earth is known as biodiversity.
the large number and diversity of organisms on earth is known as?
biodiversity
a key interest of modern research in functional ecology is the impact of functional diversity on ecosystem health. unsurprisingly, biodiversity has a positive impact on the productivity of an ecosystem. increased functional diversity increases both the capacity of the ecosystem to regulate the flux of energy and matter through the environment (ecosystem functions) as well as the ecosystem's ability to produce resources beneficial to humans such as air, water, and wood (ecosystem services). ecosystem functions are drastically reduced with decreases in the diversity of genes, species and functional groups present within an ecosystem. in fact, reductions in functional diversity broadly impact the survivability of organisms in an environment regardless of functional group, trophic level, or species, implying that the organization and interaction of communities in an ecosystem has a profound impact on its ability to function and self-sustain. furthermore, diversity improves environmental stability. the greater an ecosystem's diversity, the more resilient it is to changes in species composition (e.g. extinction events or invasive species) and extraneous changes to environmental conditions (e.g. logging, farming, and pollution). moreover, the benefits that diversity provides to an environment scale non-linearly with the amount of diversity. unfortunately, this relationship also acts in the opposite direction. the "loss" of diversity non-linearly disrupts ecosystems (even stable ones); this negative impact is especially detrimental when the loss is across trophic levels. for, example, the loss of a single tertiary predator can have cascading effects on the food chain, resulting in reduction of plant biomass and genetic diversity. this in turn can alter the "vegetation structure, fire frequency, and even disease epidemics in a range of ecosystems". the effects of diversity on ecosystems are so powerful, that they can rival the impact of climate change and other global ecosystem stressors.
functional ecology
all organisms on earth are descended from a common ancestor or ancestral gene pool. current species are a stage in the process of evolution, with their diversity the product of a long series of speciation and extinction events. the common descent of organisms was first deduced from four simple facts about organisms: first, they have geographic distributions that cannot be explained by local adaptation. second, the diversity of life is not a set of completely unique organisms, but organisms that share morphological similarities. third, vestigial traits with no clear purpose resemble functional ancestral traits. fourth, organisms can be classified using these similarities into a hierarchy of nested groups, similar to a family tree.
evolution