MORE ECOLOGICAL CONCEPTS

The variety of life on Earth, its biological diversity is commonly referred to as biodiversity. The number of species of plants, animals, and microorganisms, the enormous diversity of genes in these species, the different ecosystems on the planet, such as deserts, rainforests and coral reefs are all part of a biologically diverse Earth.

Species diversity is the extent to which an ecosystem possesses differences in spcies in terms of genetic variation and distribution. Species diversity or BIODIVERSITY is directly related to the stability of ecosystems. Communities consist of populations each of which is a group of interbreeding organisms belonging to the same species. Populations increase through births or seed production and the addition through movememnt into a population called immigration. On the other hand, populations decrease through deaths and emigration or movement out of a population.

Biodiversity actually boosts ecosystem productivity where each species, no matter how small, all have an important role to play and that it is this combination that enables the ecosystem to possess the ability to prevent and recover from a variety of disasters. This is obviously useful for mankind as a larger number of species of plants means more variety of crops and a larger number of species of animals ensure that the ecosystem is naturally sustained.

Higher diversity results in longer food chains and more cases of interactions among species.


DISTRIBUTION:

Individuals in a population are either distributed randomly, uniformly, or clumped. Random distribution is rare and occurs only when the environment is so uniform that there is no use to stay together for reasons of security, access to food or whatever.

Desert cacti are examples of plants with random distribution. Restriction of distribution of species occurs when barriers to the dispersal of the species exist. Land, water and mountains can set the broad limits to distribution of species on a global scale.

In areas where are uniformly distributed species, there is severe competition among individuals. In other cases, there is antagonism that promotes even spacing among animals or plants. Mice or even chicken tend to exhibit uniform distribution. Among plants, plantation species need to be evenly distributed so as to get nutrienst and water evenely.

Any introduced activity, wheter it be massive grazing, road building or power projects, disrupt the natural distribution of species. This may eventually lead to species extinction unless special attention is given to the nature of species distribution in an ecosystem.