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Biodiversity loss and extinction
Biodiversity loss and extinction
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The earth has been around for billions of years. That doesn't mean that it has always stayed the same. Through time the earth has changed, causing many other populations to change as well. There are many ways that the earth's process has changed in different populations over time For example,. through evolution, what paleontologist finds out, and through the extinction of many organisms. Exactly how has the earth changed many populations of organisms? Since the earth has changed so much, many organisms must evolve to survive. Since the earth is constantly changing and creating for landforms over time. The certain animals that live in an area must evolve to be able to live in the new environment from the landform. For example, natural selection is when “only the strong survive so that organism continues to evolve”.(ISN) Many organisms must adapt to their new environment over time. A landform can cause animals to evolve because they have a new …show more content…
Paleontologist can find how different environments used to be or look like by the fossils that are in that area. We learn how earth's environments have changed over time and what extinctions have happened over time. For example, if a paleontologist finds shells in a desert, than they can infer that it used to be underwater and what organisms lived in that environment. Or if there is a wide variety of the same fossils they can infer that a massive extinction has occurred. The earth has change into many forms causing the environments to change and the organisms to move. That can change the population of organisms by if there was water creatures in a desert area, then that was a massive change in the population of that area. Paleontologist can also see how different organisms lived and cared for each other by how the fossils look. Many organisms have gone extinct, but how does that change
There is no such thing as just changing something from one part and not having its effects distribute throughout the entire ecosystem. As an ecosystem continues changing and evolving, so will the organisms living around or in it. We must adapt to the environment or we will become extinct, unable to adapt into the rapidly changing environment we live in. Althout human impact on an environment may benefit us, it can also be harmful to nature. By taking care of what we do to the environment, we can prevent future negative changes in the environment and preserve earth’s natural state.
Evolution is described, as being the change that occurs on a genetic level when a new generation spouts from an ancestral population. Change is destined to happen. That is why in the science of biology the word evolution means descent with modification. Through various factors such as the temperature of the environment, humidity, and altitude a species will adapt to survive and will eventually pass on genetic traits that help the species next generation survive.
The formation and breakup of continents, mountains, volcanic activity, changes in climate and sea level affected the course of evolution.. Paleozoic Era was restricted to the oceans. Organisms evolved a lot crating the “Cambrian Explosion”.
Natural selection is associated with the phrase “survival of the fittest.” This basically means that the fittest individuals can not only survive, but are also able to leave the most offspring. The selection of phenotypes affects the genotypes. For example, if tall pea plants are favored in the environment, then the tall pea plants would leave more offspring behind, meaning that the offspring will carry tall alleles. Phenotypes that are successful have the best adaptations (characteristics that help an individual to survive and reproduce) to their environment. These adaptation arise from the interactions with living and nonliving aspects of the environment. Some nonliving aspects of the environment are climate, water availability, and concentration of mineral sin the
...lision, sea levels were lower. The poles began to gain ice caps. Due to all the ice, the sea levels dropped even more. With the sea levels decreasing, there was more land between continents for animals to travel across. Due to the continually cooling climates, the earth entered an Ice Age. The lower sea levels and new mountain ranges contributed to it. There were a lot more ice caps than there are today.
Evolution in general, is a hard concept to grasp. There are multiple factors that effect the outcome a species, for example: genetics, nurture, nature, and the environment all play an important role. It was once said that species do not survive due to the fact that they are the strongest or the most intelligent, but because that species is the most responsive to change.
According to Darwin and his theory on evolution, organisms are presented with nature’s challenge of environmental change. Those that possess the characteristics of adapting to such challenges are successful in leaving their genes behind and ensuring that their lineage will continue. It is natural selection, where nature can perform tiny to mass sporadic experiments on its organisms, and the results can be interesting from extinction to significant changes within a species.
There are two different parts of natural selection. There is natural selection itself and then there is also non-adaptive evolution. Natural selection deals with the change of allele frequencies because of the change in the environment. The allele frequencies give us an indication of how much variation there is in a population. A population wants more variation because it allows the population to deal
The Eocene Epoch ended about 35 million years ago allowing the third epoch of the Cenozoic Era, the Oligocene, to begin. The end of the Eocene Epoch can be considered to be a facto of the plate movement observed above. Not only did the plates move but they also resulted in a distinct change in the temperatures observed in the atmosphere. The average temperatures suddenly cooling caused the overall climate to leave the moist, subtropical level and become very dry. The ice caps returned to the North and South Poles of the Earth. This form of cooling affected many organisms causing them to become extinct but also allowing for different types of habitats, like woodlands, to be made.
Evolution is a on going process and the evolution is made up of many different processes. It allows species to become what they are, how they act, and what they will become. It also allows species to be able to survive. It produces new and different species through ancestral populations of organisms and moves them to new population. Both natural selection and genetic drift decrease genetic variation. If they were the only mechanisms of evolution, populations would eventually become homogeneous and further evolution would be impossible. There are, however, mechanisms that replace variation depleted by selection and drift (Colby).
Many scientists in the past, such as Aristotle and Plato, believed that there were no changes in populations; however, other scientists, such as Darwin and Wallace, arose and argued that species inherit heritable traits from common ancestors and environmental forces drives out certain heritable traits that makes the species better suited to survive or be more “fit” for that environment. Therefore, species do change over a period of time and they were able to support their theory by showing that evolution does occur. There were four basic mechanisms of evolution in their theory: mutation, migration, genetic drift, and natural selection. Natural selection is the gradual process by which heritable traits that makes it more likely for an organism to survive and successfully reproduce increases, whereas there is a decline in those who do have those beneficial heritable traits (Natural Selection). For example, there is a decrease in rain which causes a drought in the finches’ environment. The seeds in the finches’ environment would not be soft enough for the smaller and weaker beak finches to break; therefore, they cannot compete with the larger and stronger beak finches for food. The larger and stronger beak finches has a heritable trait that helps them survive and reproduce better than others for that particular environment which makes them categorized under natural selection (Freeman, 2002).
The link between climate change and biodiversity loss has long been established. Although throughout Earth’s history the climate has always changed with ecosystems and species coming and going were able to adapt. Rapid climate change affects the ecosystems and species ability to adapt and so biodiversity loss increases. Climate change has many environmental impacts on biodiversity, projected future changes are likely to result in changes in the distribution of species and ecosystems, and overall biodiversity loss. There are many ways you can go about this situation to help reduce the impact the climate change has on the biodiversity, I have two approaches that I think would be very efficient. The affects climate change has on biodiversity loss is important to the world for many reasons. If climate change continues to affect biodiversity it can have an enormous impact on human society, it will have a major impact on the food chain which we greatly depend on, water sources may become scarce, and medicines and other sources that we obtain from plants may reduce or even disappear because of biodiversity loss.
Thousands of species have become extinct over the last four decades as a result of changes in land use and as a result of global warming. Whether or not the millions of species can adapt and evolve to climate changes is debatable. As this brief overview will report, the human species is not adapting well to the changes. It must be remembered that increases in the levels of carbon dioxide are certainly responsible for the risk many species face, but so is the way land is used, e.g., rain forest destruction. There is a feedback loop wherein plant life and the climate are interdependent. Each affects the other. When forests are cut down, temperatures in that area will rise. Rising temperatures cause other plant life requiring cooler temperatures To die off.
Organisms require food resources to obtain energy for survival and reproduction. From the food that organisms consume they acquire energy needed for metabolic processes such as respiration, growth, and reproduction. Some organisms have the ability to get food resources better than others. The amount of food availability in a specific habitat is limited, therefore organisms that are not able to get the food resources most likely will go to a unfilled niche to get their food resources. Because there is no competition and there are a lot of unfilled niches, organisms that are not adapted to these niches can exploit them. Organisms that are able to adapt to these new niches, will eventually develop mutations that will help them exploit these niches and give them a big advantage over other organisms. Individual species that are able to adapt to a new environment have a higher chance of surviving because the competition is lower and more resource is available. So organism such as animals and plants rely on adaptive radiation mechanism to ensure they survive and pass on their genes to their offspring.
The theory of natural selection is not limited to inheritable and beneficial variations of a species. It also relies a great deal on the population growth and death of a species. For a species to continue to exist it must make sure of a few things. It must first produce more offspring that survive. If this is not done then the species is obviously going to die off. It is also important for the species to propagate at such a rate as to allow for variance, for it is variance that will ultimately allow the animal to exist comfortably in his surroundings. In his studies, Darwin was led to understand that “…the species of the larger genera in each country would oftener present varieties, than the species of the smaller genera;” (p. 55). Thus the larger species would adapt while the smaller one would not. And to quote Darwin again, “…if any one species does not become modified and improved in a corresponding degree with its competitors, it will soon be exterminated.” (p. 102)