The Importance of Biodiversity (CIE IGCSE Biology: Co-ordinated Sciences (Double Award))

• An ecosystem is defined as a unit containing the community of organisms and their environment, interacting together (e.g. a decomposing log, a lake)

Biodiversity

• Is defined as the number of different species that live in a particular area
• Human activities have tended to force biodiversity downwards, whereas, high biodiversity is needed for stable ecosystems
• Habitat destruction by humans is a major downward pressure on biodiversity

Reasons for Habitat Destruction

• The increasing human population of the planet is causing destruction of many habitats from rainforest to woodland to marine
• Many habitats are destroyed by humans to make space for other economic activities, or by pollution from these activities, and this reduces the biodiversity of these areas
• This interrupts food chains and webs, meaning that more species may die because their prey is gone
• The main reasons for habitat destruction include:

 

Deforestation

• Deforestation is the clearing of trees (usually on a large scale)
• If trees are replaced by replanting it can be a sustainable practise
• Generally the trees are being cleared for the land to be used in a different way (for building, grazing for cattle, planting of monocultures such as palm oil plantations etc) and therefore it is not sustainable
• As the amount of the Earth’s surface covered by trees decreases, it causes increasingly negative effects on the environment and is a particularly severe example of habitat destruction
• Undesirable effects of deforestation include:
  • Extinction of species
  • Loss of soil
  • Flooding
  • Increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere

Extended Tier Only

An explanation of the undesirable effects of deforestation table