BLG 144 Lecture Notes - Lecture 13: Species Richness, Bioremediation, Reforestation
Document Summary
Biodiversity (tree of life): describes the evolutionary relationships among all forms of life. The branches represent lineages of organisms living today and tips represent species. Biodiversity is quantified at the level of: allelic diversity, species diversity, ecosystem diversity. Genetic diversity: total genetic information contained within all individuals of species > frequency of all alleles present in a species. Species diversity: variety of life forms on earth, measured as the number and relative frequency of species in a particular region. To document species diversity use barcoding: using well characterized gene sequence to identify distinct species. Ecosystem diversity: variety of biotic communities in a region along with abiotic components such as soil, water and nutrients. 1. 5 million species are present in the world < still a tiny fraction. Taxon-specific surveys: surveys of species rich groups at small sites. All-taxa surveys: survey of all species present in particular region.
