Ecosystem Diversity

Ecosystem
An ecosystem is a community plus the physical environment that it occupies at a given time. An ecosystem can exist at any scale, for example, from the size of a small tide pool up to the size of the entire biosphere. However, lakes, marshes, and forest stands represent more typical examples of the areas that are compared in discussions of ecosystem diversity.

What Is Ecosystem Diversity?

Biodiversity
Biodiversity is the degree of variation of life forms within a given species, ecosystem, biome, or an entire planet. Biodiversity is a measure of the health of ecosystems. Biodiversity is in part a function of climate. In terrestrial habitats, tropical regions are typically rich whereas polar regions support fewer species.

Evolution
Evolution is the change in the inherited characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins Charles Darwin was

the first to formulate a scientific argument for the theory of evolution by means of natural selection.

Types Of Evolution
Heredity
Evolution in organisms occurs through changes in heritable traits particular characteristics of an organism. Heritable traits are passed from one generation to the next via DNA, a molecule that encodes genetic information.

Variation
An individual organism's phenotype results from both its genotype and the influence from the environment it has lived in. A substantial part of the variation in phenotypes in a population is caused by the differences between their genotypes. The frequency of one particular allele will become more or less prevalent relative to other forms of that gene. Variation disappears when a new allele reaches the point of fixation when it either disappears from the population or replaces the ancestral allele entirely.

Mutation
Mutations are changes in the DNA sequence of a cell's genome. When mutations occur, they can either have no effect, alter the product of a gene, or prevent the gene from functioning.

Gene flow
Gene flow is the exchange of genes between populations and between species. It can therefore be a source of variation that is new to a population or to a species. Gene flow can be caused by the movement of individuals between separate populations of organisms, as might be caused by the movement of mice between inland and coastal populations, or the movement of pollenbetween heavy metal tolerant and heavy metal sensitive populations of grasses.

Natural Selection
Natural selection is the gradual, non-random process by which biological traits become either more or less common in a population as a function of differential reproduction of their bearers. It is a key mechanism of evolution. Variation exists within all populations of organisms. This occurs partly because random mutations cause changes in the genome of an individual organism, and these mutations can be passed to offspring. Throughout the individuals lives, their genomes interact with their environments to cause variations in traits. (The environment of a genome includes Natural selection is the molecular biology in the cell, other cells, one of the basic other individuals, populations, species, as well mechanisms of as the abiotic environment.)

evolution, along with mutation, migration, and genetic drift.

Darwin's grand idea of evolution by natural selection is relatively simple but often misunderstood. To find out how it works: Here is an Explanation
1.There is variation in traits. For example, some beetles are green and some are brown. 2. There is differential reproduction. Since the environment can't support unlimited population growth, not all individuals get to reproduce to their full potential. In this example, green beetles tend to get eaten by birds and survive to reproduce less often than brown beetles do. 3.There is heredity. The surviving brown beetles have brown baby beetles because this trait has a genetic basis. End result: The more advantageous trait, brown coloration, which allows the beetle to have more offspring. If this process continues, eventually, all individuals in the population will be brown.

Ecosystem Services
Ecosystem Services are the processes by which the environment produces resources that we often take for granted such as clean water, timber, and habitat for fisheries, and pollination of native and agricultural plants. Whether we find ourselves in the city or a rural area, the ecosystems in which humans live provide goods and services that are very familiar to us.

Ecosystems provide services that: moderate weather extremes and their impacts disperse seeds mitigate drought and floods protect people from the suns harmful ultraviolet rays cycle and move nutrients protect stream and river channels and coastal shores from erosion detoxify and decompose wastes control agricultural pests maintain biodiversity generate and preserve soils and renew their fertility contribute to climate stability purify the air and water regulate disease carrying organisms pollinate crops and natural vegetation

Thats All Thank You!!