in 1988 Yellowstone National Park was on fire fires burned throughout the summer destroying trees and vegetation in the end over 795 thousand acres of land was burned if you return to the same spot 10 years later you could hardly tell the land had been burned the variety of life found that Yellowstone allowed the ecosystem to recover and is an example of why biodiversity is important to an ecosystem biodiversity is the variety of life in an area that is determined by the number of species in that area in simple terms biodiversity is the number of different
individuals in life forms in an area as biodiversity increases so does the health of the ecosystem increases think of it like this you're running a business you want your business to be healthy and make money imagine you sell shirts however you only sell a black shirt with a heart on it so you're limited if these shirts go out of style you're out of business if you have a variety of shirts as fashion changes and tastes change you're better able to adapt to these changes and continue making money as biodiversity increases the ecosystem has the ability
to adapt to changes and a healthy ecosystem has a greater chance of recovering from disasters biodiversity can be broken down into three types genetic diversity species diversity and ecosystem diversity genetic diversity is the variety of genes which control in heritable characteristics present in a population for example the population of beetles have over 350,000 different varieties and are found in almost every environment including freshwater coastal habitats wherever vegetation is found in trees in their bark near flowers and leaves and even underground near the root also think of the variety of dogs you have different shapes in
colours of dogs and these are controlled by genes and they either increase or decrease genetic diversity greater genetic diversity increases the odds of survival of the species or a population as the ecosystem changes species diversity species diversity is the number of different species and the relative abundance of each species in a community a rain force may have 3 250 million different types of species living in the fourth as species diversity increases most likely the health of the ecosystem increases the ecosystem diversity is the variation in the ecosystems found an origination in the ecosystems over the
whole planet it is a measure of the variety of biotic and living or living factors and nonliving or abiotic factors present in an ecosystem rain forests usually have a high ecosystem diversity in deserts and polar regions usually have a low ecosystem diversity in general terms biodiversity is greater at the equator and decreases as you move away from the equator so in summary as the de variety of life goes up in an ecosystem biodiversity increases and the health of the ecosystem also goes up thanks for watching and moomoomath uploads a new math and science
