3.7 Components of Biodiversity

Question 1

What are the 3 components of biodiversity?

Answer 1

Genetic diversity, species diversity and ecosystem diversity

Question 2

What is genetic diversity?

Answer 2

The number and frequency of all the alleles within a population

Question 3

What happens if one population of a species dies out?

Answer 3

The species may have lost some of its genetic diversity, and thus may limit its ability to adapt to changing conditions

Question 4

What is species diversity?

Answer 4

A compromise of the number of different species in an ecosystem (the species richness) and the proportion of each species in the ecosystem (the relative abundance)

Question 5

What does a community with a dominant species mean?

Answer 5

A lower species diversity than one with the same species richness but no particularly dominant species

Question 6

What is ecosystem diversity?

Answer 6

Refers to the number of distinct ecosystems within a defined area