Biodiversity

2.3.1 Biodiversity

Definitions:

Biodiversity – is the variety of organisms in an area.

Species – is a group of similar organisms that can reproduce to produce a fertile offspring.

Habitat – is the area inhabited by a species. It can be characterized by physical factors, such as the soil and temperature range, and the living factors, like availability of food or the presence of the predators.

Different levels of biodiversity:

Habitat diversity – is the number of habitats in a particular area. For example, an area could contain sand dunes, marshes, beaches, etc.

Species diversity – is the number of different species and the abundance of each species in an area.

Genetic diversity – is the allele diversity within a species, e.g. human blood type is determined by a gene with four different alleles.

Biodiversity sampling

It is time consuming to count every organism in a habitat. So sampling can be used to work out the estimated number of organisms in that habitat.

First of all, an area within a habitat needs to be chosen. Then you count the number of individual species within that are. How you count them depends on what type of organism you are counting. For plants, for example you would use quadrates, for flying insects - a net on a pole, for ground based insects – a pitfall trap and for aquatic organisms you would use a net. After this you would repeat this process for as many areas as you…