BIOL 230 Lecture : Bio230 Notes.pdf
Document Summary
Biodiversity is the variety of life, including variation among genes, species and functional traits. It is often measured as: richness is a measure of the number of unique life forms evenness is a measure of the equitability among life forms heterogeneity is the dissimilarity among life forms. Ecosystem functions are ecological processes that control the fluxes of energy, nutrients and organic matter through an environment. Examples include: primary production, nutrient cycling, and decomposition. Ecosystem services are the suite of benefits that ecosystems provide to humanity. There are two major types of ecosystem services: Ecosystem services are all the processes through which natural ecosystems and the biodiversity they contain help sustain human life on the earth. These are activities that reduce productivity: maintenance of biodiversity, nutrient cycling. Protecting biodiversity is critically important on many levels: we use hundreds of domesticated and wild species for food, fuel, fiber, medicines, and building materials, we are dependent on ecosystem services.
