How does biodiversity affect the stability of an ecosystem

Variation among species in their response to such fluctuation is an essential requirement for ecosystem stability, as is the presence of species that can compensate for the function of species that are lost. A stable community is one in which the size of the populations of all species remain relatively constant over time. In the example above the amount of grass, and the numbers of rabbits and foxes all remain relatively constant. The different populations are living in a healthy balance with their environment.

Ecosystems have lots of different living organisms that interact with each other. The living organisms in an ecosystem can be divided into three categories: producers, consumers and decomposers. They are all important parts of an ecosystem. Producers are the green plants. An ecosystem, which is created and maintained by human beings, is called artificial or man- made ecosystem.

Some examples of man- made ecosystem are aquarium, garden, agriculture, apiary, poultry, piggery etc. Man made ecosystems are created to mimic the natural ecosystems. Different artificial or man made ecosystems are crop land and zoo and dams and aquarium. Complete answer: Crop field is an example of an artificial or man-made ecosystem because agricultural crop fields are maintained by humans for the production of food substances.

Answer: Man-made resources are items or substances that have value to human lives that do not occur in the natural world. Examples of man-made resources include plastic, paper, soda, sheet metal, rubber and brass. These contrast with natural resources, such as water, crops, sunlight, crude oil, wood and gold. Biological diversity, often shortened to biodiversity, is the variation of life at all levels of biological organization, referring not only to the sum total of life forms across an area, but also to the range of differences between those forms.

Biodiversity runs the gamut from the genetic diversity in a single population to the variety of ecosystems across the globe. Greater biodiversity in ecosystems, species , and individuals leads to greater stability. For example, species with high genetic diversity and many populations that are adapted to a wide variety of conditions are more likely to be able to weather disturbances, disease, and climate change.

Greater biodiversity also enriches us with more varieties of foods and medicines. The Endangered Species Act is under attack. We need your help fighting back. The measurement of biodiversity is complex and has a qualitative as well as a quantitative aspect.

If a species is genetically unique — if, for instance, it's far out on a remote arm of the evolutionary tree, like the distinctive, peculiar platypus — its biodiversity value is greater than that of a species clustered with many similar species because it preserves a unique part of the evolutionary history of the planet.

This means that biodiversity can't be defined merely as the aggregate total of genes, species, or habitats, but must also be understood as a measure of the variety of their differences. That said, the easiest shorthand way to describe biodiversity is often through species counts. Current estimates of global species diversity vary between 2 million and million species, with a popular estimate of somewhere near 13 to 14 million. The majority of them are arthropods. But very little is known about most species.

Only roughly 1. Local human activities may cause the loss of some of the key species in the ecosystems such as large seaweeds , seagrasses and burrowing worms. It is not yet known how these different impacts might combine to affect ecosystem processes. In the BIOFUSE project simple experiments were used to compare the effect of loss of a key species on a number of marine ecosystems, which were also subjected to an experimental disturbance. The goal was to find out whether the effects of biodiversity loss are the same across different habitats and locations.

The loss of key species affected many, but not all, ecosystems. The influence of loss of species and disturbance varied among habitats and locations. Complex combined effects of these two impacts occurred in a few cases. A major impact on ecosystem functioning was rarely observed, which suggests a widespread capacity of ecosystems to compensate for the loss of a single species, even key species.

This is good news with respect to these habitats, but the results showed variation between locations, something which is reflected in the EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive where regional focus is emphasized [1].

Log in. Page Discussion. Read View source View history. Jump to: navigation , search. Article reviewed by. Peter Herman See the discussion page. Rocky shores are dynamic and fascinating habitats which are influenced by the tides.

They are biologically rich in terms of the number and variety of species they support. Marine Biodiversity and Ecosystem Functioning. Observational evidence of a negative biodiversity—stability relationship in intertidal epibenthic communities.