<p><Success style = "float: center; text-align: center; font-size:30px"><B>Biodiversity and Conservation</B></Success></p> <p><Primary style = "float: center; text-align: center; font-size:30px"><B>Intoduction</B></Primary></p> <hr> <main> <div style='float: left; width:100%; text-align: left;font-size:23px'> <ul> <li> <p>If an alien from a distant galaxy were to visit our planet Earth, the first thing that would amaze and baffle him would most probably be the enormous diversity of life that he would encounter</p> </li> <li> <p>Even for humans, the rich variety of living organisms with which they share this planet never ceases to astonish and fascinate us</p> </li> </ul> </div> </main> <hr> <footer style= "font-size:18px"> <span style= "color:blue">Intoduction</span>$\rarr$ Biodiversity $\rarr$ Biodiversity Conservation</footer>

<p><Success style = "float: center; text-align: center; font-size:30px"><B>Biodiversity and Conservation</B></Success></p> <p><Primary style = "float: center; text-align: center; font-size:30px"><B>Intoduction</B></Primary></p> <hr> <main> <div style='float: left; width:100%; text-align: left;font-size:23px'> <ul> <li> <p>The common man would find it hard to believe that there are more than 20,000 species of ants, 3,00,000 species of beetles, 28,000 species of fishes and nearly 20,000 species of orchids</p> </li> <li> <p>Ecologists and evolutionary biologists have been trying to understand the significance of such diversity by asking important questions– Why are there so many species? Did such great diversity exist throughout earth’s history?</p> </li> </ul> </div> </main> <hr> <footer style= "font-size:18px"> <span style= "color:blue">Intoduction</span>$\rarr$ Biodiversity $\rarr$ Biodiversity Conservation</footer>

<p><Success style = "float: center; text-align: center; font-size:30px"><B>Biodiversity and Conservation</B></Success></p> <p><Primary style = "float: center; text-align: center; font-size:30px"><B>Intoduction</B></Primary></p> <hr> <main> <div style='float: left; width:100%; text-align: left;font-size:23px'> <ul> <li> <p>How did this diversification come about?</p> </li> <li> <p>How and why is this diversity important to the biosphere?</p> </li> <li> <p>Would it function any differently if the diversity was much less?</p> </li> <li> <p>How do humans benefit from the diversity of life?</p> </li> </ul> </div> </main> <hr> <footer style= "font-size:18px"> <span style= "color:blue">Intoduction</span>$\rarr$ Biodiversity $\rarr$ Biodiversity Conservation</footer>

<p><Success style = "float: center; text-align: center; font-size:30px"><B>Biodiversity and Conservation</B></Success></p> <p><Primary style = "float: center; text-align: center; font-size:30px"><B>Biodiversity</B></Primary></p> <hr> <main> <div style='float: left; width:100%; text-align: left;font-size:23px'> <ul> <li> <p>In our biosphere immense diversity (or heterogeneity) exists not only at the species level but at all levels of biological organisation ranging from macromolecules within cells to biomes</p> </li> <li> <p>Biodiversity is the term popularised by the sociobiologist Edward Wilson to describe the combined diversity at all the levels of biological organisation</p> </li> </ul> </div> </main> <hr> <footer style= "font-size:18px">Intoduction$\rarr$ <span style= "color:blue">Biodiversity</span> $\rarr$ Biodiversity Conservation</footer>

<p><Success style = "float: center; text-align: center; font-size:30px"><B>Biodiversity and Conservation</B></Success></p> <p><Primary style = "float: center; text-align: center; font-size:30px"><B>Biodiversity</B></Primary></p> <hr> <main> <div style='float: left; width:100%; text-align: left;font-size:23px'> <ul> <li>The most important of them are–</li> </ul> <p>(i) <strong>Genetic diversity:</strong> A single species might show high diversity at the genetic level over its distributional range</p> <ul> <li>The genetic variation shown by the medicinal plant Rauwolfia vomitoria growing in different Himalayan ranges might be in terms of the potency and concentration of the active chemical (reserpine) that the plant produces</li> </ul> </div> </main> <hr> <footer style= "font-size:18px">Intoduction$\rarr$ <span style= "color:blue">Biodiversity</span> $\rarr$ Biodiversity Conservation</footer>

<p><Success style = "float: center; text-align: center; font-size:30px"><B>Biodiversity and Conservation</B></Success></p> <p><Primary style = "float: center; text-align: center; font-size:30px"><B>Biodiversity</B></Primary></p> <hr> <main> <div style='float: left; width:100%; text-align: left;font-size:23px'> <ul> <li>India has more than 50,000 genetically different strains of rice, and 1,000 varieties of mango</li> </ul> <p>(ii) <strong>Species diversity:</strong> The diversity at the species level, for example, the Western Ghats have a greater amphibian species diversity than the Eastern Ghats</p> </div> </main> <hr> <footer style= "font-size:18px">Intoduction$\rarr$ <span style= "color:blue">Biodiversity</span> $\rarr$ Biodiversity Conservation</footer>

<p><Success style = "float: center; text-align: center; font-size:30px"><B>Biodiversity and Conservation</B></Success></p> <p><Primary style = "float: center; text-align: center; font-size:30px"><B>Biodiversity</B></Primary></p> <hr> <main> <div style='float: left; width:100%; text-align: left;font-size:23px'> <p>(iii) <strong>Ecological diversity:</strong> At the ecosystem level, India, for instance, with its deserts, rain forests, mangroves, coral reefs, wetlands, estuaries, and alpine meadows has a greater ecosystem diversity than a Scandinavian country like Norway</p> <ul> <li>It has taken millions of years of evolution, to accumulate this rich diversity in nature, but we could lose all that wealth in less than two centuries if the present rates of species losses continue</li> </ul> </div> </main> <hr> <footer style= "font-size:18px">Intoduction$\rarr$ <span style= "color:blue">Biodiversity</span> $\rarr$ Biodiversity Conservation</footer>

<p><Success style = "float: center; text-align: center; font-size:30px"><B>Biodiversity and Conservation</B></Success></p> <p><Primary style = "float: center; text-align: center; font-size:30px"><B>Biodiversity</B></Primary></p> <hr> <main> <div style='float: left; width:100%; text-align: left;font-size:23px'> <ul> <li>Biodiversity and its conservation are now vital environmental issues of international concern as more and more people around the world begin to realise the critical importance of biodiversity for our survival and well- being on this planet</li> </ul> </div> </main> <hr> <footer style= "font-size:18px">Intoduction$\rarr$ <span style= "color:blue">Biodiversity</span> $\rarr$ Biodiversity Conservation</footer>

<p><Success style = "float: center; text-align: center; font-size:30px"><B>Biodiversity and Conservation</B></Success></p> <p><Primary style = "float: center; text-align: center; font-size:30px"><B>Biodiversity</B></Primary></p> <hr> <main> <div style='float: left; width:100%; text-align: left;font-size:23px'> <p><strong>How Many Species are there on Earth and How Many in India?</strong></p> <ul> <li>Since there are published records of all the species discovered and named, we know how many species in all have been recorded so far, but it is not easy to answer the question of how many species there are on earth</li> </ul> </div> </main> <hr> <footer style= "font-size:18px">Intoduction$\rarr$ <span style= "color:blue">Biodiversity</span> $\rarr$ Biodiversity Conservation</footer>

<p><Success style = "float: center; text-align: center; font-size:30px"><B>Biodiversity and Conservation</B></Success></p> <p><Primary style = "float: center; text-align: center; font-size:30px"><B>Biodiversity</B></Primary></p> <hr> <main> <div style='float: left; width:100%; text-align: left;font-size:23px'> <ul> <li> <p>According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) (2004), the total number of plant and animal species described so far is slightly more than 1.5 million, but we have no clear idea of how many species are yet to be discovered and described</p> </li> <li> <p>Estimates vary widely and many of them are only educated guesses</p> </li> </ul> </div> </main> <hr> <footer style= "font-size:18px">Intoduction$\rarr$ <span style= "color:blue">Biodiversity</span> $\rarr$ Biodiversity Conservation</footer>

<p><Success style = "float: center; text-align: center; font-size:30px"><B>Biodiversity and Conservation</B></Success></p> <p><Primary style = "float: center; text-align: center; font-size:30px"><B>Biodiversity</B></Primary></p> <hr> <main> <div style='float: left; width:100%; text-align: left;font-size:23px'> <ul> <li> <p>For many taxonomic groups, species inventories are more complete in temperate than in tropical countries</p> </li> <li> <p>Considering that an overwhelmingly large proportion of the species waiting to be discovered are in the tropics, biologists make a statistical comparison of the temperate-tropical species richness of an exhaustively studied group of insects and extrapolate this ratio to other groups of animals and plants to come up with a gross estimate of the total number of species on earth</p> </li> </ul> </div> </main> <hr> <footer style= "font-size:18px">Intoduction$\rarr$ <span style= "color:blue">Biodiversity</span> $\rarr$ Biodiversity Conservation</footer>

<p><Success style = "float: center; text-align: center; font-size:30px"><B>Biodiversity and Conservation</B></Success></p> <p><Primary style = "float: center; text-align: center; font-size:30px"><B>Biodiversity</B></Primary></p> <hr> <main> <div style='float: left; width:100%; text-align: left;font-size:23px'> <ul> <li> <p>Some extreme estimates range from 20 to 50 million, but a more conservative and scientifically sound estimate made by Robert May places the global species diversity at about 7 million</p> </li> <li> <p>Let us look at some interesting aspects about earth’s biodiversity based on the currently available species inventories</p> </li> </ul> </div> </main> <hr> <footer style= "font-size:18px">Intoduction$\rarr$ <span style= "color:blue">Biodiversity</span> $\rarr$ Biodiversity Conservation</footer>

<p><Success style = "float: center; text-align: center; font-size:30px"><B>Biodiversity and Conservation</B></Success></p> <p><Primary style = "float: center; text-align: center; font-size:30px"><B>Biodiversity</B></Primary></p> <hr> <main> <div style='float: left; width:100%; text-align: left;font-size:23px'> <ul> <li> <p>More than 70 per cent of all the species recorded are animals, while plants (including algae, fungi, bryophytes, gymnosperms and angiosperms) comprise no more than 22 per cent of the total</p> </li> <li> <p>Among animals, insects are the most species-rich taxonomic group, making up more than 70 per cent of the total</p> </li> </ul> </div> </main> <hr> <footer style= "font-size:18px">Intoduction$\rarr$ <span style= "color:blue">Biodiversity</span> $\rarr$ Biodiversity Conservation</footer>

<p><Success style = "float: center; text-align: center; font-size:30px"><B>Biodiversity and Conservation</B></Success></p> <p><Primary style = "float: center; text-align: center; font-size:30px"><B>Biodiversity</B></Primary></p> <hr> <main> <div style='float: left; width:100%; text-align: left;font-size:23px'> <ul> <li> <p>That means, out of every 10 animals on this planet, 7 are insects</p> </li> <li> <p>Again, how do we explain this enormous diversification of insects?</p> </li> <li> <p>The number of fungi species in the world is more than the combined total of the species of fishes, amphibians, reptiles and mammals</p> </li> </ul> </div> </main> <hr> <footer style= "font-size:18px">Intoduction$\rarr$ <span style= "color:blue">Biodiversity</span> $\rarr$ Biodiversity Conservation</footer>

<p><Success style = "float: center; text-align: center; font-size:30px"><B>Biodiversity and Conservation</B></Success></p> <p><Primary style = "float: center; text-align: center; font-size:30px"><B>Biodiversity</B></Primary></p> <hr> <main> <div style='float: left; width:100%; text-align: left;font-size:23px'> <ul> <li>In Figure 13.1, biodiversity is depicted showing species number of major taxa</li> </ul> </div> </main> <hr> <footer style= "font-size:18px">Intoduction$\rarr$ <span style= "color:blue">Biodiversity</span> $\rarr$ Biodiversity Conservation</footer>

<p><Success style = "float: center; text-align: center; font-size:30px"><B>Biodiversity and Conservation</B></Success></p> <p><Primary style = "float: center; text-align: center; font-size:30px"><B>Biodiversity</B></Primary></p> <hr> <main> <img src= "https://imagedelivery.net/YfdZ0yYuJi8R0IouXWrMsA/919ca7b5-a4b4-4cc2-5c47-7f040edd5000/public"> </main> <hr> <footer style= "font-size:18px">Intoduction$\rarr$ <span style= "color:blue">Biodiversity</span> $\rarr$ Biodiversity Conservation</footer>

<p><Success style = "float: center; text-align: center; font-size:30px"><B>Biodiversity and Conservation</B></Success></p> <p><Primary style = "float: center; text-align: center; font-size:30px"><B>Biodiversity</B></Primary></p> <hr> <main> <div style='float: left; width:100%; text-align: left;font-size:23px'> <ul> <li> <p>It should be noted that these estimates do not give any figures for prokaryotes</p> </li> <li> <p>Biologists are not sure about how many prokaryotic species there might be</p> </li> <li> <p>The problem is that conventional taxonomic methods are not suitable for identifying microbial species and many species are simply not culturable under laboratory conditions</p> </li> </ul> </div> </main> <hr> <footer style= "font-size:18px">Intoduction$\rarr$ <span style= "color:blue">Biodiversity</span> $\rarr$ Biodiversity Conservation</footer>

<p><Success style = "float: center; text-align: center; font-size:30px"><B>Biodiversity and Conservation</B></Success></p> <p><Primary style = "float: center; text-align: center; font-size:30px"><B>Biodiversity</B></Primary></p> <hr> <main> <div style='float: left; width:100%; text-align: left;font-size:23px'> <ul> <li> <p>If we accept biochemical or molecular criteria for delineating species for this group, then their diversity alone might run into millions</p> </li> <li> <p>Although India has only 2.4 per cent of the world’s land area, its share of the global species diversity is an impressive 8.1 per cent</p> </li> </ul> </div> </main> <hr> <footer style= "font-size:18px">Intoduction$\rarr$ <span style= "color:blue">Biodiversity</span> $\rarr$ Biodiversity Conservation</footer>

<p><Success style = "float: center; text-align: center; font-size:30px"><B>Biodiversity and Conservation</B></Success></p> <p><Primary style = "float: center; text-align: center; font-size:30px"><B>Biodiversity</B></Primary></p> <hr> <main> <div style='float: left; width:100%; text-align: left;font-size:23px'> <ul> <li> <p>That is what makes our country one of the 12 mega diversity countries of the world</p> </li> <li> <p>Nearly 45,000 species of plants and twice as many of animals have been recorded from India</p> </li> <li> <p>How many living species are actually there waiting to be discovered and named?</p> </li> </ul> </div> </main> <hr> <footer style= "font-size:18px">Intoduction$\rarr$ <span style= "color:blue">Biodiversity</span> $\rarr$ Biodiversity Conservation</footer>

<p><Success style = "float: center; text-align: center; font-size:30px"><B>Biodiversity and Conservation</B></Success></p> <p><Primary style = "float: center; text-align: center; font-size:30px"><B>Biodiversity</B></Primary></p> <hr> <main> <div style='float: left; width:100%; text-align: left;font-size:23px'> <ul> <li> <p>If we accept May’s global estimates, only 22 per cent of the total species have been recorded so far</p> </li> <li> <p>Applying this proportion to India’s diversity figures, we estimate that there are probably more than 1,00,000 plant species and more than 3,00,000 animal species yet to be discovered and described</p> </li> </ul> </div> </main> <hr> <footer style= "font-size:18px">Intoduction$\rarr$ <span style= "color:blue">Biodiversity</span> $\rarr$ Biodiversity Conservation</footer>

<p><Success style = "float: center; text-align: center; font-size:30px"><B>Biodiversity and Conservation</B></Success></p> <p><Primary style = "float: center; text-align: center; font-size:30px"><B>Biodiversity</B></Primary></p> <hr> <main> <div style='float: left; width:100%; text-align: left;font-size:23px'> <ul> <li> <p>Would we ever be able to complete the inventory of the biological wealth of our country?</p> </li> <li> <p>Consider the immense trained manpower (taxonomists) and the time required to complete the job</p> </li> </ul> </div> </main> <hr> <footer style= "font-size:18px">Intoduction$\rarr$ <span style= "color:blue">Biodiversity</span> $\rarr$ Biodiversity Conservation</footer>

<p><Success style = "float: center; text-align: center; font-size:30px"><B>Biodiversity and Conservation</B></Success></p> <p><Primary style = "float: center; text-align: center; font-size:30px"><B>Biodiversity</B></Primary></p> <hr> <main> <div style='float: left; width:100%; text-align: left;font-size:23px'> <ul> <li> <p>The situation appears more hopeless when we realise that a large fraction of these species faces the threat of becoming extinct even before we discover them</p> </li> <li> <p>Nature’s biological library is burning even before we catalogued the titles of all the books stocked there</p> </li> </ul> </div> </main> <hr> <footer style= "font-size:18px">Intoduction$\rarr$ <span style= "color:blue">Biodiversity</span> $\rarr$ Biodiversity Conservation</footer>

<p><Success style = "float: center; text-align: center; font-size:30px"><B>Biodiversity and Conservation</B></Success></p> <p><Primary style = "float: center; text-align: center; font-size:30px"><B>Biodiversity</B></Primary></p> <hr> <main> <div style='float: left; width:100%; text-align: left;font-size:23px'> <p><strong>Patterns of Biodiversity</strong></p> <p>(i) <strong>Latitudinal gradients:</strong> The diversity of plants and animals is not uniform throughout the world but shows a rather uneven distribution</p> <ul> <li>For many group of animals or plants, there are interesting patterns in diversity, the most well- known being the latitudinal gradient in diversity</li> </ul> </div> </main> <hr> <footer style= "font-size:18px">Intoduction$\rarr$ <span style= "color:blue">Biodiversity</span> $\rarr$ Biodiversity Conservation</footer>

<p><Success style = "float: center; text-align: center; font-size:30px"><B>Biodiversity and Conservation</B></Success></p> <p><Primary style = "float: center; text-align: center; font-size:30px"><B>Biodiversity</B></Primary></p> <hr> <main> <div style='float: left; width:100%; text-align: left;font-size:23px'> <ul> <li> <p>In general, species diversity decreases as we move away from the equator towards the poles</p> </li> <li> <p>With very few exceptions, tropics (latitudinal range of 23.5° N to 23.5° S) harbour more species than temperate or polar areas</p> </li> </ul> </div> </main> <hr> <footer style= "font-size:18px">Intoduction$\rarr$ <span style= "color:blue">Biodiversity</span> $\rarr$ Biodiversity Conservation</footer>

<p><Success style = "float: center; text-align: center; font-size:30px"><B>Biodiversity and Conservation</B></Success></p> <p><Primary style = "float: center; text-align: center; font-size:30px"><B>Biodiversity</B></Primary></p> <hr> <main> <div style='float: left; width:100%; text-align: left;font-size:23px'> <ul> <li> <p>Colombia located near the equator has nearly 1,400 species of birds while New York at 41° N has 105 species and Greenland at 71° N only 56 species</p> </li> <li> <p>India, with much of its land area in the tropical latitudes, has more than 1,200 species of birds</p> </li> </ul> </div> </main> <hr> <footer style= "font-size:18px">Intoduction$\rarr$ <span style= "color:blue">Biodiversity</span> $\rarr$ Biodiversity Conservation</footer>

<p><Success style = "float: center; text-align: center; font-size:30px"><B>Biodiversity and Conservation</B></Success></p> <p><Primary style = "float: center; text-align: center; font-size:30px"><B>Biodiversity</B></Primary></p> <hr> <main> <div style='float: left; width:100%; text-align: left;font-size:23px'> <ul> <li> <p>A forest in a tropical region like Equador has up to 10 times as many species of vascular plants as a forest of equal area in a temperate region like the Midwest of the USA</p> </li> <li> <p>The largely tropical Amazonian rain forest in South America has the greatest biodiversity on earth- it is home to more than 40,000 species of plants, 3,000 of fishes, 1,300 of birds, 427 of mammals, 427 of amphibians, 378 of reptiles and of more than 1,25,000 invertebrates</p> </li> </ul> </div> </main> <hr> <footer style= "font-size:18px">Intoduction$\rarr$ <span style= "color:blue">Biodiversity</span> $\rarr$ Biodiversity Conservation</footer>

<p><Success style = "float: center; text-align: center; font-size:30px"><B>Biodiversity and Conservation</B></Success></p> <p><Primary style = "float: center; text-align: center; font-size:30px"><B>Biodiversity</B></Primary></p> <hr> <main> <div style='float: left; width:100%; text-align: left;font-size:23px'> <ul> <li> <p>Scientists estimate that in these rain forests there might be at least two million insect species waiting to be discovered and named</p> </li> <li> <p>What is so special about tropics that might account for their greater biological diversity?</p> </li> </ul> </div> </main> <hr> <footer style= "font-size:18px">Intoduction$\rarr$ <span style= "color:blue">Biodiversity</span> $\rarr$ Biodiversity Conservation</footer>

<p><Success style = "float: center; text-align: center; font-size:30px"><B>Biodiversity and Conservation</B></Success></p> <p><Primary style = "float: center; text-align: center; font-size:30px"><B>Biodiversity</B></Primary></p> <hr> <main> <div style='float: left; width:100%; text-align: left;font-size:23px'> <ul> <li>Ecologists and evolutionary biologists have proposed various hypotheses; some important ones are</li> </ul> <p>(a) Speciation is generally a function of time, unlike temperate regions subjected to frequent glaciations in the past, tropical latitudes have remained relatively undisturbed for millions of years and thus, had a long evolutionary time for species diversification,</p> </div> </main> <hr> <footer style= "font-size:18px">Intoduction$\rarr$ <span style= "color:blue">Biodiversity</span> $\rarr$ Biodiversity Conservation</footer>

<p><Success style = "float: center; text-align: center; font-size:30px"><B>Biodiversity and Conservation</B></Success></p> <p><Primary style = "float: center; text-align: center; font-size:30px"><B>Biodiversity</B></Primary></p> <hr> <main> <div style='float: left; width:100%; text-align: left;font-size:23px'> <p>(b) Tropical environments, unlike temperate ones, are less seasonal, relatively more constant and predictable</p> <ul> <li>Such constant environments promote niche specialisation and lead to a greater species diversity and</li> </ul> </div> </main> <hr> <footer style= "font-size:18px">Intoduction$\rarr$ <span style= "color:blue">Biodiversity</span> $\rarr$ Biodiversity Conservation</footer>

<p><Success style = "float: center; text-align: center; font-size:30px"><B>Biodiversity and Conservation</B></Success></p> <p><Primary style = "float: center; text-align: center; font-size:30px"><B>Biodiversity</B></Primary></p> <hr> <main> <div style='float: left; width:100%; text-align: left;font-size:23px'> <p>(c) There is more solar energy available in the tropics, which contributes to higher productivity; this in turn might contribute indirectly to greater diversity</p> <p>(ii) <strong>Species-Area relationships:</strong> During his pioneering and extensive explorations in the wilderness of South American jungles, the great German naturalist and geographer Alexander von Humboldt observed that within a region species richness increased with increasing explored area, but only up to a limit</p> </div> </main> <hr> <footer style= "font-size:18px">Intoduction$\rarr$ <span style= "color:blue">Biodiversity</span> $\rarr$ Biodiversity Conservation</footer>

<p><Success style = "float: center; text-align: center; font-size:30px"><B>Biodiversity and Conservation</B></Success></p> <p><Primary style = "float: center; text-align: center; font-size:30px"><B>Biodiversity</B></Primary></p> <hr> <main> <div style='float: left; width:100%; text-align: left;font-size:23px'> <ul> <li>In fact, the relation between species richness and area for a wide variety of taxa (angiosperm plants, birds, bats, freshwater fishes) turns out to be a rectangular hyperbola (Figure13.2)</li> </ul> </div> </main> <hr> <footer style= "font-size:18px">Intoduction$\rarr$ <span style= "color:blue">Biodiversity</span> $\rarr$ Biodiversity Conservation</footer>

<p><Success style = "float: center; text-align: center; font-size:30px"><B>Biodiversity and Conservation</B></Success></p> <p><Primary style = "float: center; text-align: center; font-size:30px"><B>Biodiversity</B></Primary></p> <hr> <main> <img src= "https://imagedelivery.net/YfdZ0yYuJi8R0IouXWrMsA/3fb88151-9d97-4ee2-1613-daa638edbb00/public"> </main> <hr> <footer style= "font-size:18px">Intoduction$\rarr$ <span style= "color:blue">Biodiversity</span> $\rarr$ Biodiversity Conservation</footer>

<p><Success style = "float: center; text-align: center; font-size:30px"><B>Biodiversity and Conservation</B></Success></p> <p><Primary style = "float: center; text-align: center; font-size:30px"><B>Biodiversity</B></Primary></p> <hr> <main> <div style='float: left; width:100%; text-align: left;font-size:23px'> <ul> <li>On a logarithmic scale, the relationship is a straight line described by the equation</li> </ul> <p>log S = log C + Z log A</p> <p>where</p> <p>S= Species richness</p> <p>A= Area</p> <p>Z = slope of the line (regression coefficient)</p> <p>C = Y-intercept</p> </div> </main> <hr> <footer style= "font-size:18px">Intoduction$\rarr$ <span style= "color:blue">Biodiversity</span> $\rarr$ Biodiversity Conservation</footer>

<p><Success style = "float: center; text-align: center; font-size:30px"><B>Biodiversity and Conservation</B></Success></p> <p><Primary style = "float: center; text-align: center; font-size:30px"><B>Biodiversity</B></Primary></p> <hr> <main> <div style='float: left; width:100%; text-align: left;font-size:23px'> <ul> <li> <p>Ecologists have discovered that the value of Z lies in the range of 0.1 to 0.2, regardless of the taxonomic group or the region (whether it is the plants in Britain, birds in California or molluscs in New York state, the slopes of the regression line are amazingly similar)</p> </li> <li> <p>But, if you analyse the species-area relationships among very large areas like the entire continents, you will find that the slope of the line to be much steeper (Z values in the range of 0.6 to 1.2)</p> </li> </ul> </div> </main> <hr> <footer style= "font-size:18px">Intoduction$\rarr$ <span style= "color:blue">Biodiversity</span> $\rarr$ Biodiversity Conservation</footer>

<p><Success style = "float: center; text-align: center; font-size:30px"><B>Biodiversity and Conservation</B></Success></p> <p><Primary style = "float: center; text-align: center; font-size:30px"><B>Biodiversity</B></Primary></p> <hr> <main> <div style='float: left; width:100%; text-align: left;font-size:23px'> <ul> <li> <p>For example, for frugivorous (fruit-eating) birds and mammals in the tropical forests of different continents, the slope is found to be 1.15</p> </li> <li> <p>What do steeper slopes mean in this context?</p> </li> </ul> </div> </main> <hr> <footer style= "font-size:18px">Intoduction$\rarr$ <span style= "color:blue">Biodiversity</span> $\rarr$ Biodiversity Conservation</footer>

<p><Success style = "float: center; text-align: center; font-size:30px"><B>Biodiversity and Conservation</B></Success></p> <p><Primary style = "float: center; text-align: center; font-size:30px"><B>Biodiversity</B></Primary></p> <hr> <main> <div style='float: left; width:100%; text-align: left;font-size:23px'> <p><strong>The importance of Species Diversity to the Ecosystem</strong></p> <ul> <li> <p>Does the number of species in a community really matter to the functioning of the ecosystem?</p> </li> <li> <p>This is a question for which ecologists have not been able to give a definitive answer</p> </li> </ul> </div> </main> <hr> <footer style= "font-size:18px">Intoduction$\rarr$ <span style= "color:blue">Biodiversity</span> $\rarr$ Biodiversity Conservation</footer>

<p><Success style = "float: center; text-align: center; font-size:30px"><B>Biodiversity and Conservation</B></Success></p> <p><Primary style = "float: center; text-align: center; font-size:30px"><B>Biodiversity</B></Primary></p> <hr> <main> <div style='float: left; width:100%; text-align: left;font-size:23px'> <ul> <li> <p>For many decades, ecologists believed that communities with more species, generally, tend to be more stable than those with less species</p> </li> <li> <p>What exactly is stability for a biological community?</p> </li> </ul> </div> </main> <hr> <footer style= "font-size:18px">Intoduction$\rarr$ <span style= "color:blue">Biodiversity</span> $\rarr$ Biodiversity Conservation</footer>

<p><Success style = "float: center; text-align: center; font-size:30px"><B>Biodiversity and Conservation</B></Success></p> <p><Primary style = "float: center; text-align: center; font-size:30px"><B>Biodiversity</B></Primary></p> <hr> <main> <div style='float: left; width:100%; text-align: left;font-size:23px'> <ul> <li> <p>A stable community should not show too much variation in productivity from year to year; it must be either resistant or resilient to occasional disturbances (natural or man-made), and it must also be resistant to invasions by alien species</p> </li> <li> <p>We don’t know how these attributes are linked to species richness in a community, but David Tilman’s long-term ecosystem experiments using outdoor plots provide some tentative answers</p> </li> </ul> </div> </main> <hr> <footer style= "font-size:18px">Intoduction$\rarr$ <span style= "color:blue">Biodiversity</span> $\rarr$ Biodiversity Conservation</footer>

<p><Success style = "float: center; text-align: center; font-size:30px"><B>Biodiversity and Conservation</B></Success></p> <p><Primary style = "float: center; text-align: center; font-size:30px"><B>Biodiversity</B></Primary></p> <hr> <main> <div style='float: left; width:100%; text-align: left;font-size:23px'> <ul> <li> <p>Tilman found that plots with more species showed less year-to-year variation in total biomass</p> </li> <li> <p>He also showed that in his experiments, increased diversity contributed to higher productivity</p> </li> </ul> </div> </main> <hr> <footer style= "font-size:18px">Intoduction$\rarr$ <span style= "color:blue">Biodiversity</span> $\rarr$ Biodiversity Conservation</footer>

<p><Success style = "float: center; text-align: center; font-size:30px"><B>Biodiversity and Conservation</B></Success></p> <p><Primary style = "float: center; text-align: center; font-size:30px"><B>Biodiversity</B></Primary></p> <hr> <main> <div style='float: left; width:100%; text-align: left;font-size:23px'> <ul> <li> <p>Although, we may not understand completely how species richness contributes to the well-being of an ecosystem, we know enough to realise that rich biodiversity is not only essential for ecosystem health but imperative for the very survival of the human race on this planet</p> </li> <li> <p>At a time when we are losing species at an alarming pace, one might ask– Does it really matter to us if a few species become extinct?</p> </li> </ul> </div> </main> <hr> <footer style= "font-size:18px">Intoduction$\rarr$ <span style= "color:blue">Biodiversity</span> $\rarr$ Biodiversity Conservation</footer>

<p><Success style = "float: center; text-align: center; font-size:30px"><B>Biodiversity and Conservation</B></Success></p> <p><Primary style = "float: center; text-align: center; font-size:30px"><B>Biodiversity</B></Primary></p> <hr> <main> <div style='float: left; width:100%; text-align: left;font-size:23px'> <ul> <li> <p>Would Western Ghats ecosystems be less functional if one of its tree frog species is lost forever?</p> </li> <li> <p>How is our quality of life affected if, say, instead of 20,000 we have only 15,000 species of ants on earth?</p> </li> <li> <p>There are no direct answers to such näive questions but we can develop a proper perspective through an analogy (the ‘rivet popper hypothesis’) used by Stanford ecologist Paul Ehrlich</p> </li> </ul> </div> </main> <hr> <footer style= "font-size:18px">Intoduction$\rarr$ <span style= "color:blue">Biodiversity</span> $\rarr$ Biodiversity Conservation</footer>

<p><Success style = "float: center; text-align: center; font-size:30px"><B>Biodiversity and Conservation</B></Success></p> <p><Primary style = "float: center; text-align: center; font-size:30px"><B>Biodiversity</B></Primary></p> <hr> <main> <div style='float: left; width:100%; text-align: left;font-size:23px'> <ul> <li> <p>In an airplane (ecosystem) all parts are joined together using thousands of rivets (species)</p> </li> <li> <p>If every passenger travelling in it starts popping a rivet to take home (causing a species to become extinct), it may not affect flight safety (proper functioning of the ecosystem) initially, but as more and more rivets are removed, the plane becomes dangerously weak over a period of time</p> </li> </ul> </div> </main> <hr> <footer style= "font-size:18px">Intoduction$\rarr$ <span style= "color:blue">Biodiversity</span> $\rarr$ Biodiversity Conservation</footer>

<p><Success style = "float: center; text-align: center; font-size:30px"><B>Biodiversity and Conservation</B></Success></p> <p><Primary style = "float: center; text-align: center; font-size:30px"><B>Biodiversity</B></Primary></p> <hr> <main> <div style='float: left; width:100%; text-align: left;font-size:23px'> <ul> <li> <p>Furthermore, which rivet is removed may also be critical</p> </li> <li> <p>Loss of rivets on the wings (key species that drive major ecosystem functions) is obviously a more serious threat to flight safety than loss of a few rivets on the seats or windows inside the plane</p> </li> </ul> </div> </main> <hr> <footer style= "font-size:18px">Intoduction$\rarr$ <span style= "color:blue">Biodiversity</span> $\rarr$ Biodiversity Conservation</footer>