ECOSYSTEM: BIODIVERSITY

• Natural selection is the process through which populations of living organisms adapt and change.
• Biodiversity or biological diversity simply means the variety and variability among living organisms and the ecological complexes in which they occur.
• Categories of the Values of Biodiversity

  1. Direct Value
  2. Indirect Value
  3. Aesthetic Value
• Aesthetic Value - nature contributes immensely to the beauty of the world.
• Indirect Values or Non-Consumptive Value - these are those ways by which we do not physically use plants or animals, but by its existence, it provides services that keep the ecosystem healthy.
• Direct Value - these are those ways by which we can directly use biodiversity for our benefit.
• a factor that limits the growth, distribution, or abundance of an organism or population within an ecosystem is known as a limiting factor.
• population is referred to a group of organisms of the same species that live in a certain area.
• There are two types of limiting factor:

  1. Density-Independent limiting factor
  2. Density-Dependent limiting factor
• Density-Dependent limiting factors are those factors whose effect on a population is determined by the total size of population, predation, and disease as well as resource availability are all examples of density-dependent factors.
• density-Independent limiting factor limits the size of the population, but whose effects are not dependent on the size of the population, this includes environmentally stressful events such as earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanic eruption as well as sudden climate changes such as drought or flood and destructive occurrences.