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Three Levels of Biodiversity Genetic Diversity | Species Diversity | Ecosystem Diversity Researchers generally accept three levels of biodiversity: genetic, species, and ecosystem. These levels are all interrelated yet distinct enough that they can be studied as three separate components. Some researchers believe that there are fewer or more levels than these, but the consensus is that three levels is a good number to work with. Most studies, either theoretical or experimental, focus on the species level, as it is the easiest to work on both conceptually and in practice. The following parts will cover all levels of diversity, though examples will generally use the species level.
What is it? Genetic diversity can be measured at many different levels, including population, species, community, and biome. Which level is used depends upon what is being examined and why, but genetic diversity is important at each of these levels. Why is it important? What is it related to? In communities, it can increase with the diversity of species. How much it increases depends not only on the number of species, but also on how closely related the species are. Species that are closely related (e.g. two species of maple) have similar genetic structures and makeup and therefore do not contribute much additional genetic diversity. These closely-related species will contribute to genetic diversity in the community less than more remotely-related species (e.g. a maple and a pine) would. An increase in species diversity can also affect the genetic diversity, and do so differently at different levels. If there are many species, the genetic diversity at that level will be larger than when there are fewer species. On the other hand, genetic diversity within each species can decrease. This can happen if the large number of species means so much competition that each species must be extremely specialized, such as only eating a single type of food. If they are so specialized, this specialization will lead to little genetic diversity within any of the species.
Biodiversity studies typically
focus on species. They do so not because species diversity is more important
than the other two types, but because Species are well known and are distinct units of diversity. Each species can be considered to have a particular "role" in the ecosystem, so the addition or loss of single species may have consequences for the system as a whole. Conservation efforts often begin with the recognition that a species is endangered in some way, and a change in the number of species in an ecosystem is a readily obtainable and easily comprehensible measure of how healthy the ecosystem is. For more information on the species level of biodiversity, visit the Redpath Museum's Biodiversity of Quebec website (link will open in a new browser window).
One of the difficulties in examining communities is that the transitions between them are usually not very sharp. A lake may have a very sharp boundary between it and the deciduous forest it is in, but the deciduous forest will shift much more gradually to grasslands or to a coniferous forest. This lack of sharp boundaries is known as "open communities" (as opposed to "closed communities," which would have sudden transitions) and makes studying ecosystems difficult, since even defining and delimiting them can be problematic. Some researchers think of communities as simply the sum of their species and processes, and don't think that any of the properties found in communities are special to that level. Many others disagree, claiming that many of the characteristics of communities are unique and cannot be extrapolated from the species level. Examples of these characteristics include the levels of the food chain and the species at each of those levels, guilds (species in a community that are functionally similar), and other interactions.
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