Variety and ecology of the living world

What is biodiversity?
• Biodiversity is the variety of life. Ecosystem biodiversity refers to the variety of
ecosystems, natural communities, and habitats within a particular area or region.
Our focus will be on species biodiversity, or the variety of plants and animals in a
particular habitat. In essence, it’s the variety of ways that species interact with
each other and their environment.
• The forests of Maine differ from the forests of Colorado by the types of species
found in both ecosystems, as well as by the temperature and rainfall. These two
seemingly similar ecosystems have a lot of differences that make them both
special. The opposite of species diversity is monoculture. The term “monoculture”
refers to a situation in which only one species occupies a particular area or region.
Examples of man-made monocultures include lawns and farms (such as wheat
fields or pumpkin patches). Identifying and understanding the relationships
between all life on Earth are some of the greatest challenges in science.
• Animal populations may be human, domesticated, or wild.
Wildlife includes insects, spiders, birds, reptiles, fish,
amphibians, and mammals. Wildlife is all around and varies
from microscopic to over 100 feet (30.5 m) in length. All living
things go through a series of orderly changes in their life cycles.
Humans and wildlife have the same basic needs: air, food, water,
and space to grow. Plants are the backbone of all life on Earth
and an essential resource for human well-being. Our everyday
life depends on plants. Everything we eat comes directly or
indirectly from plants. Many of our prescription drugs come
directly from or are derivatives of plants.
• Plants are the foundation of all habitats. Wildlife depends on plants for
food and shelter. Plants regulate the water cycle; they help distribute
and purify the planet’s water. They also help move water from the soil to
the atmosphere through a process called transpiration. Plants give us
oxygen as a byproduct of photosynthesis. They store carbon and have
helped keep much of the carbon dioxide produced from the burning of
fossil fuels out of the atmosphere. Energy is essential to all
ecosystems—without it life cannot exist. Green plants use energy from
the sun and components of the air and soil to make their own food. For
this reason they are known as producers. Animals cannot make their
own food. They get energy by eating plants and other animals. For this
reason, all animals are known as consumers.
• The organisms that feed on the dead bodies of plants and animals
are known as decomposers. Examples of decomposers are
mushrooms, molds, worms, and bacteria. Animals that hunt and kill
other animals for food are known as predators. Animals that don’t
hunt but eat animals that are already dead are known as scavengers.
Each of these roles is important to the welfare of the entire
ecosystem. The flow of energy through an ecosystem occurs
through species eating and being eaten. These relationships are
often expressed as a food chain or food web. Competitive and
cooperative relationships in an ecosystem help to maintain a
dynamic balance between the organisms and physical resources.
• Ecology
• Ecology is the scientific study of how living things interact with each other and their natural environment,
structure and functions of ecosystems. Ecology is essential in providing the information on how the world works.
It also provides facts on the interdependence between the natural world and people. A better understanding of
ecological systems can help us understand the global and regional consequences of competition among
humans for the scarce natural resources that support us. Listed below are different types of ecology.
• Organismal /physiological/ behavioral ecology.
• It focuses on how the living organisms (animal and plants) react to biotic and abiotic factors in their
environment; physiology, morphology and behavior. Physiological ecology on animal focuses on the whole-
animal function and alteration to ever-changing environments. These alterations have a tendency to maximize
the fitness of animals (their capacity to survive and reproduce successfully). The physiological processes
studied are temperature regulation, nutrition, water and metabolism on energy and energetics and response to
environmental stresses. These environmental factors may include nutrition, disease, climate variation and toxic
exposure. For instance, animal’s heat and mass balances are affected by the climate thus these changes affect
how bodies regulate temperatures. On the other hand, physiological ecology on plants emphasizes on
understanding how plants deal with environmental variation at the physiological intensity, and on the pressure of
resource limitation growth, metabolism and reproduction of individuals within and among plants populations,
along environment gradients and across different communities and ecosystems.
• Population ecology
• It deals with studies of structure and dynamics of populations. That is; factors that affect population and
how and why a population varies over time. A population ecologist studies the interelations of organisms
with their environments by gauging properties of populations rather than the behavior of the individual
organisms. Among the properties of population studied is population size, population density, patterns of
dispersion, demographics, dynamics, population growth and restraints on growth of This ecology is vital
in upkeep of biology, particularly in the dprogress of PVA (population viability analysis) which allows the
forecasting of long-term possibilty of a species persevering in a particular locale such as a national park.
• Community Ecology
• This deals with the interactions between organisms that is, the feeding relationships among species, or
who helps who, who competes with whom and for what resources and how those interactions affect
community structure (the organization of a biological community with respect to ecological interactions).
Community ecologist investigates the factors influencing community structure, biodiversity, and the
distribution and abundance of species. These factors include theinterelations with the non living world
and different collections of interelations that take between species. The primary focus of community
ecology is on predation, herbivory, competition and parasitism and mutualism.
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• Ecosystem Ecology
• Ecosystem is a community of living organism that is, animals,
plants and microbes together with abiotic components of their
environment (such components include things like water, air and
mineral soil) interelating g as a system. The studies of
ecosystem includes the study of certain processes that link the
living (biotic components) to the non-living (abiotic
components). These components are said to be joined together
via nutrient sequences and energy flows.
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