Biodiversity and Classification

What is WILDLIFE?

What is Biodiversity? In the world’s ecosystems there exists millions of species of living organisms. Each species contains it’s own unique genetic blueprint. Within the species are untold unique individuals.

What is Biodiversity? Biodiversity can be defined as the range of life in an area. It includes not only the diversity among species but the diversity within a species. A species is a reproductive community of populations that occupies a specific niche in nature. i.e. they share DNA with each other and not other species AND they have a particular job in a particular place.

So what makes a species, a species? You need to be able to interbreed (mate with like species successfully). (example: types of dogs) French Bullhuahua

Share a gene pool (genes are common through like species).

Reproductively isolated from other species (may be by location, habitat, habits, etc).

Create fertile offspring from mating.

Liger! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zOWYj59BXI

There can be difficulties and confusion in classifying what is a separate species. When a potential new species is identified, it can be difficult to differentiate with previous species. Eg. Some species of mosquitos are 100% identical from the outside and can only be separated based on their breeding areas.

Scientists believe there may be as many as 30 million species of plants, animals and micro-organisms living on the Earth today. Every one of them plays a part in the global ecosystem. Taxonomists have only identified and named approximately 1.7 million of them so far.

But classifying organisms is an attempt to make the relatedness between species understood. We classify many things around us to organize and simplify our lives. Can you name some examples of classification?

Religion gender colour size or shape social status year of manufacture monetary worth, etc

Taxonomy: Taxonomy is the science of identifying and naming species and organizing them into systems of classification. This system uses binomial nomenclature (two words) for naming organisms. A two-word Latin name is asigned to each organism

Our taxonomic system places similar species into groups and then breaks these into subgroups, sub-subgroups etc.

KINGS PLAY CHESS ON FINE GRAINED SAND. This memory device is to help you remember the taxonomic levels. The first letter of each word represents a group in descending order.

smaller Kingdom Phylum Class Order Family Genus Species KINGS PLAY CHESS ON FINE GRAINED SAND Kingdom Phylum Class smaller Order Family Genus Species

Kingdom ANIMALIA CHORDATA Phylum MAMMALIA Class PRIMATES Order KINGS PLAY CHESS ON FINE GRAINED SAND Kingdom ANIMALIA CHORDATA Phylum MAMMALIA Class PRIMATES Order HOMONIDAE Family HOMO Genus SAPIENS Species

An organisms scientific name comes it’s last two groupings, genus and species. Ex. Humans = Homo sapiens dogs = Canis familiaris notice that a scientific name is italicized or underlined genus is capitalized, species name is not

most times the species name is descriptive if 2 species are in the same genus they must be very similar ex - Ursus americanus black bear U. horribilis grizzly bear Scientific names are universal

Phylogenic Trees A phylogenetic tree or evolutionary tree is a branching diagram or "tree" showing the imbedded evolutionary relationships among various species based upon similarities and differences in their physical and/or genetic characteristics. The species joined together in the tree are implied to have descended from a common ancestor.

Cladogram Similar in look to a pedigree, a cladogram illustrates ancestral relationships between species but are more modern in the fact that they use DNA similarities to classify and divide.