Biodiversity - (GCSE Biology)
Biodiversity
Biodiversity
Biodiversity is a measure of the variety of living organisms within a particular habitat, ecosystem, biome, or all over Earth.
- A highly biodiverse environment will be very stable. They will be able to adjust to change very easily. This also indicates that the particular environment has “good biological health”. This occurs as the food webs will have more and more overlapping links, therefore, very few species will rely on only one other species to provide food. There will also be more opportunities for shelter and supplies.
- In contrast, non-biodiverse environment will be very unstable. Such ecosystems will find it very difficult to adjust to change. This also indicates that the particular environment has “poor biological health”. There will be fewer overlapping food webs and opportunities to find supplies and shelter, therefore, if one species is affected, there could be a huge knock on effect on other organisms.
- Humans are attempting to improve biodiversity. This is occurring as we have realised that it may be our only method of surviving. We must maintain a high level of biodiversity in order to keep our species alive in the future.
Decrease in Biodiversity
We will discuss why biodiversity is decreasing later in the topic but here are some examples:
- Fish farming – Large nets with added foods are used. This food can leak out of the nets and cause eutrophication (more on this later) and cause damage to other species. Other species can also be trapped in the nets and can die.
- Introducing non-indigenous species – these are species that don’t occur naturally in the environment. They can outcompete other species and reduce biodiversity and can also bring new diseases with them.
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