Biology Stack Exchange
Biology Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [biodiversity]

The range of differences and relationships between living organisms, especially at the ecological level.

Questions may pertain to any proponent of biodiversity: biological (species richness, evenness), genetic, phylogenetic, ecological, functional, etc.)

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Why is there extreme itching when we touch a hairy caterpillar? What are ways to stop itching?

I mean there are lot of caterpillars or hairy caterpillars to be more precise when we touch those hairs we get extreme itching on that area i want to know why we got that itching? Ok i know that it must be some chemicals but which? And if one has…
Amit Rana
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Explaining the simpson's diversity index

In my biology class, we were trying to compare the biodiversity of two site. In doing so, we were instructed to use the Simpson's Diversity index as follows: $$ \frac{\sum_i n_i (n_i - 1)}{N (N - 1)}$$ Where $n_i$ is the total number of organisms…
Peter
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Why aren't animals diverse in phenotype?

I am not comparing a cat with leopard. I am just saying that we humans are all one type of creature and we are diverse (I am not saying we are class of mammals and phylum of etc and kingdom etc, because my religion doesn't believe in it). So…
user4147
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Why do we value species that are on the brink of extinction?

As I understand, biodiversity has two benefits: Species might be a functional part of the ecosystem, e.g. balancing other species' numbers or beeing part of the foodchain. Species with diverse abilities make sure that "life as a whole" can adapt to…
Zsolt Szilagy
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What is the minimum sample size to get reliable results in haplotype and nucleotide estimations?

Different software have different methods for estimating diversity and each method will have assumptions about the quantity of data required to produce a reliable result. I am estimating the haplotype and nucleotide diversity by DnaSP6 program of…
Adrián P.L.
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Total number of animals in Australia

In the last weeks there have been a lot of news reports about the number of animals that died in the current wild fires. However, I was wondering, what that is as a percentage of overall animal population in Australia. So: What's the total number of…
Florian
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What is the word for being inured to loss of biological diversity?

In the title. The word has been coined relatively recently for the phenomenon of getting used to loss of diversity because of the gradual rate it happens at. For example, not finding it strange that there are far fewer invertebrates around now…
Watrevir
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What's the best way to measure biodiversity?

As I understand it there are various ways biodiversity is measured, with varying results. From what I have been told on these boards, part of the difficulty is because it's hard to define a species exactly, so it's hard to count them. What I really…
Jimmy Widdle
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Can a species include only one subspecies?

Wikipedia says: A single subspecies cannot be recognized independently: a species is either recognized as having no subspecies at all or at least two, including any that are extinct. I do not understand this concept, please explain.
Ranjan Kandasamy
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What is the weight percentage of all people as compared to all Natural life?

If we compare the total mass with the mass of all Naturally living beings with all creatures on Earth, be they bacteria, viruses, fish, insects, plants, etc., then what is the weight percentage of all people? I ask this because I saw it mentioned…
Deschele Schilder
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