Chapter 5, Problem 10A

Summary Introduction

To determine:

The reason increased ecosystem diversity contributes to increased biodiversity in the biosphere.

Introduction:

Biodiversity is the variety of life in an area that is determined by the number of different species in that area. Biodiversity increases the stability of an ecosystem and contributes to the health of the biosphere.

Explanation of Solution

There are three types of biodiversity that includes ecosystem diversity, species diversity and genetic diversity.

Ecosystem diversity refers to the variety of ecosystems that are present in the biosphere. An ecosystem can be defined as the segment of nature that comprises the biological community and its physical environment both interacting and exchanging materials as well as energy. When an ecosystem increases, it allows a more diversified and greater variety of species. The greater variety of species means species diversity which can be defined as the number of different species and relative abundance of each species in a biological community. More species diversity will produce more genetic diversity, which means the variety of genes or inheritable characteristics that are present in a population will increase.

As genetic diversity, species diversity and ecosystem diversity are part of biodiversity, so increased ecosystem diversity will contribute to increased biodiversity in the biosphere.