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Werner Kunz the variety of life on Earth at all its levels, from genes to ecosystems, and the ecological and evolutionary processes that sustain it. Source: ©AMNH-CBC Genetic component Spatial component Functional component Temporal component within individuals communities daily within populations ecosystems e.g. reproductive behavior, predation, parasitism between populations landscapes annual ecoregions geological or evolutionary between species biogeographic regions seasonal The variation in the nucleotides, genes, chromosomes, or whole genomes of organisms Source: Human Genome Project, Department of Energy • Classified as 1 species of killer whale, Orcinus orca • Genetics show might be 3-5 species of killer whales • Matters whether or not seen as endangered Phenotype - the physical constitution of an organism that results from its genetic constitution (genotype) and the action of the environment on the expression of the genes. Thus, phenotypic diversity refers to variation in the physical traits of the organism. Domroese ©AMNH-CBC Source: ©AMNH-CBC • Species richness: the number of species present in a given area • Species diversity: species number weighted by measure of relative abundance •Many people use the term “species diversity” when they mean species richness • • • • What is a species?- tps How many species are there? Terry Erwin says 30 million! But we know 1.5 million Estimated Number of Described Species Bacteria 9,021 (0.5%) Archaea 259 (0.01%) Nematoda Actinopterygii 20,000 (1.1%) 23,712 (1.4%) Other Vertebrata 27,199 (1.6%) Other Eucarya 36,702 (2.1%) Crustacea 38,839 (2.2%) Other Plantae 49,530 (2.8%) Arachnida 74,445 (4.3%) Insecta 827,875 (47.3%) Other invertebrate Metazoa 82,047 (4.7%) Fungi 100,800 (5.8%) Stramenopiles 105,922 (6.1%) Mollusca 117,495 (6.7%) Angiospermae 233,885 (13.4%) • What is an ecosystem? • Ecosystems are a group of interacting species both with each other and the physical environment. – Forests, coral reefs, grasslands, intertidal • Why is ecosystem diversity important to us? – – – – – – coral reefs tallgrass prairie coastal wetlands old-growth forest tropical rainforest Urban areas? Source: Brumbaugh ©AMNH-CBC Mangroves, Belize Source: Harrison ©AMNH • Species associated with: ripening figs in a tropical forest, • Species clustered around a hydrothermal vent on the ocean floor, • Species in the spray zone of a waterfall, • Species under warm stones in the alpine zone on a mountaintop. Source: ©AMNH - “a relatively large unit of land or water containing a geographically distinct assemblage of species, natural communities, and environmental conditions” (WWF, 1999) Biodiversity is not distributed evenly across the planet: Source: Sterling ©AMNH-CBC Source: Kristan Hutchison,NSF: US Antarctic Program Species diversity for most taxa is lowest near the poles, and increases toward the tropics, reaching a peak in tropical rain forests (may contain more than half the species on Earth). Lunde © AMNH/CBC Adapted from Kaufman and Mallory (1986) ‘The Last Extinction’ fig 2.1 • Evolution required 10 million years or more to attain prior levels of species diversity • Homo sapiens (humans) are the cause of a sixth major extinction in history. • • • • causes - human induced rate – greater breadth of taxonomic groups affected it can be stopped or at least slowed! • http://vimeo.com/39048998