The document defines biodiversity as the variety of life forms on Earth, including genetic, species, ecosystem, and functional diversity. It emphasizes the significant threats to biodiversity, with estimates suggesting the extinction of 50,000 species annually due to human activities. Furthermore, it highlights the importance of biodiversity for ecosystems, economies, and conservation efforts, particularly in regions like Scotland.

1. Lecture #1

5. Definitions of biodiversity:
• 'Biological diversity' means the variability among
living organisms from all sources including,
terrestrial, marine and other aquatic ecosystems
and the ecological complexes of which they are a
part; this includes diversity within species,
between species and of ecosystems.
(Convention on biological diversity 1992).

6. • Biological diversity in an environment as
indicated by numbers of different species of
plants and animals.
or
• The existence of a wide variety of plant and
animal species in their natural environments,
which is the aim conservationists concerned
about the indiscriminate destruction of
rainforests and other habitats.
or

7. • The number, variety, and genetic variation of
different organisms found within a specified
geographic region.
or
• A term that describes the number of different
species that live within a particular ecosystem.
or
• Biologists most often define biodiversity as the
"totality of genes, species and ecosystems of a
region".

8. • The variety of life at every hierarchical level and
spatial scale of biological organizations: genes
within populations, populations within species,
species within communities, communities within
landscapes, landscapes within biomes, and
biomes within the biosphere.
(E. O. Wilson (1988), biodiversity).

9. • "Biodiversity" is most commonly used to
replace the more clearly defined and long
established terms,
• species diversity
and
• species richness.

10. • An advantage of this definition is that it
seems to describe most circumstances and
presents a unified view of the traditional
types of biological variety previously
identified:
• Taxonomic diversity (usually measured at
the species diversity level).
• Ecological diversity often viewed from the
perspective of ecosystem diversity.

11. • Morphological diversity which stems
from genetic diversity.
• Functional diversity which is a measure of the
number of functionally disparate species within
a population (e.g. Different feeding
mechanism, different motility, predator vs.
prey, etc.).
• In 2003, Anthony Campbell defined a fourth
level: molecular diversity.

13. Total species on planet
The number of species on Earth had been
estimated previously at 3 million to 100 million.
About 8.7 million, new estimate says, with 6.5
million species on land and 2.2 million in oceans

14. Rate of extinction
• About 2,000 new plant species are discovered
or described every year, many of which are
already on the verge of extinction.
• Based on the best available estimate,
scientists say that 21 percent of all plant
species – or one in every five plant species – is
likely threatened with extinction.

15. • We have counted the currently known, described
and accepted number of plant species as
391,000, of which approximately 369,000 are
vascular plants, with 295,383 flowering plants
(angiosperms; monocots: 74,273; eudicots:
210,008).
Global numbers of smaller plant groups are as
follows: algae 44,000, liverworts 9,000,
hornworts 225, mosses 12,700, lycopods 1,290,
ferns 10,560 and gymnosperms 1,079.

17. Biodiversity history
Explain the term biodiversity. Include gene,
species and ecosystem levels?
• The term Biodiversity was first coined by the
entomologist E.O. Wilson in 1986. A neologism
from biology and diversity, it refers to the variety
of life on the planet. There is no single standard
definition for biodiversity.

18. • Biodiversity may be defined as the totality
of different organisms, the genes they
contain, and the ecosystems they form.
• Over seven million species of plants and
animals live on planet earth, according to
the best estimates made by biologists.
• If you add in the world's species that aren't
plants or animals, such as lichens,
mushrooms and bacteria, the total number
of species leaps much higher.

19. • Tallying the estimates of all living things
brings the number to 11.3 million species
currently on earth.
• Among the world's major groups of plants
and animals, the most numerous by far are
insects, totaling five million species.
• The rest of the invertebrate species
(animals without backbones) add up to
another 1.75 million animals.
• Besides insects, invertebrate animals
include worms, centipedes and spiders.

20. • Many sea animals also belong to
invertebrates, such as shellfish and crabs,
sponges, coral, jellyfish and sea anemones.
• The world's species encompass nearly four
hundred thousand plants. Most plant
species are flowering plants, classified as
angiosperms.
• Least numerous are the vertebrate animals
(mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and
fish) which number eighty thousand. Of
these, mammals account for the fewest
species, totaling just 5,500.

21. Estimates of the total number of living plant and animal
species on earth.
Category Species Totals
Vertebrate Animals
Mammals 5,500
Birds 10,000
Reptiles 10,000
Amphibians 15,000
Fishes 40,000
Total Vertebrates 80,500

22. Invertebrate Animals
Insects 5,000,000
Arachnids 600,000
Molluscs 200,000
Crustaceans 150,000
Echinoderms 14,000
Others 791,830
Total Invertebrates 6,755,830
Category Species Total

23. Plants
Flowering plants (angiosperms) 295,383
Conifers (gymnosperms) 1,050
Ferns and horsetails 15,000
Mosses 22,750
Total Plants 391,000
TOTAL SPECIES 7,227,130
Category Species Total

24. • Global biodiversity is the measure of
biodiversity on planet Earth and is defined
as the total variability of life forms.
• More than 99 percent of all species, that
ever lived on Earth are estimated to
be extinct.
• Estimates on the number of Earth's current
species range from 2 million to 1012, of
which about 2.1 million have been data
based thus far and over 80 percent have not
yet been described.

25. • More recently, in May 2016, scientists
reported that 1 trillion species are estimated to
be on Earth currently with only one-
thousandth of one percent described.
• The total amount of DNA base pairs on Earth,
as a possible approximation of
global biodiversity, is estimated at 5.0 x 1037,
and weighs 50 billion tonnes.
• In comparison, the total mass of
the biosphere has been estimated to be as
much as 4 TtC (trillion tons of carbon).

26. • In other related studies, around 1.9 million
extant species are believed to have been
described currently, but some scientists believe
20% are synonyms, reducing the total valid
described species to 1.5 million.
• In 2013, a study published in Science estimated
there to be 5 ± 3 million extant species on Earth.
• Another study, published in 2011 by PLoS
Biology, estimated there to be 8.7 million ± 1.3
million eukaryotic species on Earth.

27. • Some 250,000 valid fossil species have been
described, but this is believed to be a small
proportion of all species that have ever lived.
• Global biodiversity is affected
by extinction and speciation. The background
extinction rate varies among taxa but it is
estimated that there is approximately one
extinction per million species years.
• Mammal species, for example, typically
persist for 1 million years.

28. • Biodiversity has grown and shrunk in earth's
past due to (presumably) abiotic factors such
as extinction events caused by geologically
rapid changes in climate.
• Climate change 299 million years ago was one
such event. A cooling and drying resulted in
catastrophic rainforest collapse and
subsequently a great loss of diversity,
especially of amphibians.
• However, the current rate and magnitude of
extinctions are much higher than background
estimates.

29. • This, considered by some to be leading to
the sixth mass extinction, is a result of
human impacts on the environment.

31. • The earth is populated by an incredible number
of different living creatures.
• The term that is used to define this “crowd” of
organisms that populate every corner of the
Planet, and that have adapted even to the most
extreme environments, is biodiversity or
biological diversity.
• Bio diversity measures the variety of animal and
vegetable species in the biosphere and is the
result of long evolution processes.

32. • Biodiversity is a fairly new word to our
language, but it is becoming more and more
commonly used and understood.
• It simply signifies the variety of life on earth
in all its shapes and sizes – from smallest
insect and fungus to the largest mammal or
tree.
• In Scotland alone it is estimated there is
something in the order of 90,000 species world
wide there could be at least 30-100 + up to 300
million.

34. Fundamental levels of organization:
• The elements that make up biodiversity can
be subdivided into four different levels:
• Genetic level
• Species level
• Ecosystem level
• Molecular level or functional level.

35. Factors determining degree of
diversity:
• Habitat stress
• Geographical isolation
• Dominance by one species
• Availability of ecological niches
• Edge effect
• Geological history

36. HIPPO
• H Habitat (Loss, Destruction, degradation,
transformation, conversion)
• I Invasive, Exotic, Alien, Foreign Species
• P Popuplation
• P pollution Soil, air, water, Noise, Thermal
• O Over exploitation, Harvesting, Grazing,
Draf ting, Neting

37. Types of biodiversity:
• In biodiversity on the basis of variation and
distribution, four types are evolved which deals
with living species separately. The types of
biodiversity vary from place to place. These
types are as follows:
• Genetic diversity
• Species diversity
• Ecological diversity
• Functional diversity

39. Genetic diversity:
• Genetic diversity refers to the differences in the
genetic heritage of a species.
or
• It is the type of biodiversity which deals with the
living organisms genetically i.e. variation in the
genes of the species and the genetic makeup of
the species differ from each other to produce a
new generation is categorized as genetic
diversity.

40. • For example: 5,000 recorded varieties of mango,
88,000 recorded varieties of Oryza sativa.
• The morphological characteristics, i.e. the
visible characteristics of living organisms, such
as:
• The color of the eyes and fur of a cat, which are
examples of variety, from a genes level, in each
single species.

42. Species biodiversity:
• Species diversity refers to the different types of
living organisms on earth.
or
• The variety among the species or distinct types
of living organisms found in different habitats
of the planet.
or
• The number of species of plants and animals
present in a region constitutes its species
diversity.

43. • This includes the many types birds, insects,
plants, bacteria, fungi, mammals and more.
• Many differing species often live together in
communities depending on each other to
provide their needs.
• For example, a man and a chimpanzee have
98% of common genes, but as we all well know,
their characteristics make them very discernible
one from the other.

44. • Some areas of the Planet have greater richness
of species than others: at the equator, for
example there is the largest number of
species, that decreases nearer to the Poles.
• In the ocean there are many more different
species near the coastlines than in the abysses.
• This diversity is seen both natural as well as
in agricultural ecosystem.

46.  Ecosystem or ecological biodiversity:
• It is an assemblage of species living in the
same area and interacting with an environment.
or
• The variety of environments in a determined
natural area is the expression of biodiversity in
the ecosystem, in other words, consider the
differences there are, for example, between a
temperate forest in South America and a
mangrove forest at the Equator.
or

47. • The variety of forests, deserts, grasslands,
streams, lakes, oceans, coral reefs, wetlands,
and other biological communities.
• This massive variety of life is everywhere, not
just in or country side and gardens, but also in
our towns and cities.

49.  Is our biodiversity threatened?
• Our biodiversity is under threat globally,
nationally and locally.
• In the last hundred years at least 100 species
have become extinct in Britain alone.
• This figure palls into insignificance when we
consider that the present extinction rate is up
to 10,000 times higher than that in prehistoric
times.

50. • It has been estimated that globally we are
currently losing up to 50,000 species every
year-that is 137 a day-6 each and every hour!
• If human activity continues to expand at
current rates, at least 20% of all species will
have disappeared in less than thirty years’ time.
• The statistics are compelling.
• A recent study estimates that if every person in
the world consumed as much as the average
person in the high-income countries of the
west, we would need three more Earths to
sustain us.

51. • So our goal of sustainable development cannot
be the continuation and expansion of such
intensive use of our natural resources.
• In Scotland, we have lost 99% of our ancient
pinewoods and 90% of our raised bogs; in
Tayside we have lost 35% of our heather
moorland.
• A quarter of Scotland’s flowering plants have
become rarer and a third of all bird species
recorded in Scotland have been found to be in
need of special conservation action.

52. • The water vole is very nearly extinct in our
area-nationally only 2% of its original
population remains.
• Many of our valuable habitats, such as
unimproved grasslands and wet woodlands,
are at risk of serious damage or loss.
• Occasionally a natural process threatens the
existence of a species or habitat, but in the
majority of cases it is the way we use our
natural resources that is the main problem.

53. • The earth is, after all, the only home we have.
• Biodiversity is short for ‘biological diversity’
and is the total variety of all living things.
• In Scotland alone there are estimated to be
about 90,000 different species or types of
living thing and there are at least 30 million
species worldwide!
• Biodiversity is not just about rare things; it is
about the ordinary plants and animals that
make one area distinct from another.

54. • So in Scotland we are famous for our ‘bonnie
purple heather’, Scots pine, blue bells, red
deer, salmon and highland cattle; and the
humble thistle is our national emblem.
• Wild landscapes, plants and animals are also
key assets for our tourist industry.
• People come from far a field to admire the
colors and patterns of the Scottish countryside.
• Wildlife tourism contributes an annual income
of at least 57 million to the result of a healthy
living world and it is also essential for Scottish
economy, plus nearly 3,000 jobs, an increase of
50% in just five years.

55. Thank you