HtmlToText
biology and environmental conservation uncategorized the challenge: identifying existing biodiversity, understanding how it is changing and why posted on september 19, 2016 by admin knowledge about the diversity of life on our planet remains limited and fragmentary: as much as 80 per cent of existing species are, as yet, undiscovered and/or undescribed. this is particularly true of unexplored regions of the world and of small organisms such as bacteria, protists and arthropods. the situation is complicated by the fact that the world is experiencing rapid changes in biodiversity—even in those taxonomic groups and locations that are well described. often, this results from increasing human activities. demographic, cultural, political and economic factors are known to have reduced and restructured salud habitats, thereby altering the distribution and abundance of species. ultimately, this can lead to changes in the chemical composition of soils, water and the atmosphere that affect the biogeochemical cycles, which regulate ecosystem functions and services. clearly, there is a need for improving our capacity to effectively monitor and assess biodiversity change and loss. this area of research holds an additional challenge: most of the world’s richest zones of biodiversity are found within developing regions, where both financial and human resources are weakest—particularly in terms of adequately trained personnel to carry out scientific investigation. diversitas’ response the first aim of biodiscovery is to advance efforts to measure and describe biodiversity at the level of genes, species and ecosystems. this is a fundamental step in the broader goals of improving our capacity to recognize change and loss, and to find out why it is occurring. this basic knowledge will better equip scientists to probe the relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning (ecoservices) and to develop appropriate social mechanisms to support more sustainable use of earth’s natural resources (biosustainability). assessing current biodiversity – in order to advance the state of knowledge of biodiversity, it is important to develop, validate and integrate new approaches. this focus will try to link taxonomic information to data on functional ecology and other relevant attributes while also synthesizing collection-based information technology with spatial sampling design and geographic mapping efforts. tasks strengthen taxonomic expertise in understudied taxa and regions increase cutting-edge methods and techniques. establish phyloinformatics as the backbone of integrated biological databases. fill in the gaps, making maximal use of museum collections while optimising new data collecting efforts. facilitate access to biological specimens and data. monitoring biodiversity change – there is an urgent need to build a cost-effective and scientifically robust observation system to monitor change and quantify the impacts of pressures acting on biodiversity. this network will enable researchers to identify and quantify the drivers of such change and to better understand both the causative processes and the ultimate consequences for ecosystem function and human use. tasks assess the adequacy of ongoing and proposed monitoring methods and programmes review research on biodiversity monitoring create network of biodiversity observatories standardise monitoring methods develop scientifically rigorous biodiversity indicators understanding and predicting biodiversity change – as a means of examining the anthropogenic drivers of biodiversity change, focus 3 will seek to develop theoretical, experimental and empirical knowledge of ecological and evolutionary processes related to biodiversity. in this context, it will investigate how changes in the pattern and intensity of resource use affects ecological structures and processes. the final goal is to develop capacities to predict future biodiversity change. tasks develop adequate understanding of the origins and dynamics identify the anthropogenic drivers of change in biodiversity assess the impacts of human activities on biodiversity develop the capacity to predict future change general biodiversity: towards a whole planet posted on september 19, 2016 by admin what is biodiversity? in essence, biological diversity or biodiversity is the sum of all life on earth. it includes the vast array of life forms, their individual genetic makeup, their life processes, and their interrelationships in communities and ecosystems. peter h. rogan, director of the botanical garden offers this more eloquent definition: “at the simplest level, biodiversity is the sum total of all the plants, animals, fungi and microorganisms in the world, or in a particular area; all of their individual variation; and all of the interactions between them. it is the set of living organisms that make up the fabric of the planet earth and allow it to function as it does, by capturing energy from the sun and using it to drive all of life’s processes; by forming communities of organisms that have, through several billion years of porno xxx on earth, altered the nature of the atmosphere, the soil and the water of our planet; and by making possible the sustainability of our planet through their life activities now.” biodiversity studies according to edward o. wilson, a world-renowned scientist and researcher, biodiversity emerged as a scientific discipline during the last 25 years in response to two important events: the realization that human activity threatens the extinction of many plant and animal species either directly or indirectly, by habitat destruction, and the recognition that we have the ability to end that process at minimal cost to human welfare. biodiversity studies are a hybrid discipline, drawing on both evolutionary biology and biotechnology in “the systematic examination of the full array of organisms and the origin of this diversity, together with the technology by which diversity can be maintained and utilized for the benefit of humanity.” levels of biodiversity biodiversity is commonly studied at three levels: genetic, species, and ecosystem diversity. genetic diversity genetic diversity refers to the different genetic makeup up of individual plants, animals, fungi, and microorganisms. it includes both genetic variation within a single species and between different species. species diversity species diversity is, simply, the variety of species. it includes all the differences within and between species populations, as well as among different species. species diversity is often used to mean “species richness,” or the number of different species present in a specific habitat. however, it can also be measured in terms of either “species abundance” – the relative population sizes among various species – or “taxonomic diversity” — the genetic linkages between different groups of species. (to learn more about how organisms are classified, follow links from our biodiversity reference material page to the sidwell school’s classification lab website) most discussions on biodiversity focus on species diversity. evolution occurs at the species level, and the origination and extinction of species are the primary factors impacting biological diversity. ecosystem diversity ecosystem diversity is more difficult to define than the other two levels of biodiversity. it comprises the many differences among ecosystem types, including diversity of habitats and ecological processes. in practice, ecosystem diversity can only be evaluated on a local or regional basis, rather than on a global scale; however, even this assessment is difficult due to the ever-changing boundaries of ecological communities and ecosystems. number of species approximately 1.7 million species have so far been identified and scientifically described, but this represents only a fraction of life on earth. the united nations’ 1995 global biodiversity assessment estimated the total number of species at 1
iccb-eccb2015.org rapport :
Visitez le site