How can biodiversity be measured

This type of thinking has driven the conservation of pandas, sea otters, and other charismatic animals. These species are called flagship species, and their conservation can result in protection of biodiversity. Even though these animals are only a small part of the whole ecosystem, preserving them means preserving the ecosystem they occupy.

Efforts to save the sea otter on the West Coast of North America have resulted in healthy kelp forests housing many thousands of other species 5. Without protection of the sea otters, herbivores like sea urchins, which are usually eaten by the otters, are capable of completely devouring kelp forests leaving barren rocks where very few species could survive.

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Login processing Estimating Biodiversity The differences in richness and evenness between two communities can be visualized by rank-abundance curves.

Threats to Biodiversity and their Implications Biodiversity around the world is threatened by pollution, climate change, and invasive species. References Knowlton, Nancy.

The future of coral reefs. Andrea S. Downing, Egbert H. Mooij, Marten Scheffer. PLoS One. Wall, Monroe E. Camptothecin and taxol: Discovery to clinic. Med Res Rev. Yuh Fen Pung, Peter T. Wong, Prakash P. Kumar, Wayne C. Or if the butterflies found on both sides each held unique variations on a gene?

Or if the existence of the forest itself depended on just one tree species? What would you decide to protect then? Holistic assessments of the biodiversity value of one region over another must account for the complex interactions between species, for it is often in these interactions that the ecosystem services humanity depends on arise. The future of just one species depends on the continued existence of more creatures than we can even count. In safeguarding biodiversity, we protect ourselves.

As satellite data has improved over time, tree cover loss detection has improved with it. Map Dashboard Topics. Using the genetic code is arguably the strongest method of measuring biodiversity as it is looking at the building blocks of life. Generally, multicellular organisms tend to have more DNA than single-celled organisms but there are exceptions. Similarly, although there appears to be an overall trend of increasing amount of DNA with increasing complexity of organisms, this is not invariant.

The species with the greatest amount of DNA has about , times as much as that with the least, but the species with the largest number of genes has only 20 times as many genes as that found in many bacteria. In other words, much genetic variation is attributable not to differences in the number of functional genes, but in the amounts of non-coding DNA. Whilst biodiversity can be measured in a host of ways, in practice it tends to be measured in terms of species richness; the number of species.

Jan 5, Explanation: There are multiple ways to measure biodiversity. Related questions What is the Law of Tolerance? Can you explain how evolution and biodiversity are related? What are some examples of an ecological niche?

What is an example of an animal and their niche for the grassland savannah biome?