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Forests harbour most of Earth's terrestrial biodiversity. The conservation of the world's biodiversity is thus utterly dependent on the way in which we interact with and use the world's forests. [78] A new method used in 2011, put the total number of species on Earth at 8.7 million, of which 2.1 million were estimated to live in the ocean. [79]
Life is a quality that distinguishes matter that has biological processes, such as signaling and self-sustaining processes, from matter that does not. It is defined descriptively by the capacity for homeostasis, organisation, metabolism, growth, adaptation, response to stimuli, and reproduction.
[11] [12] Their contributions shaped ancient Greek natural philosophy. [13] [11] [12] [14] [15] Ancient Greek philosophers such as Aristotle (384–322 BCE) contributed extensively to the development of biological knowledge. [16] He explored biological causation and the diversity of life. His successor, Theophrastus, began the scientific study ...
An ecosystem (or ecological system) is a system that environments and their organisms form through their interaction. [2]: 458 The biotic and abiotic components are linked together through nutrient cycles and energy flows.
Biogeography now incorporates many different fields including but not limited to physical geography, geology, botany and plant biology, zoology, general biology, and modelling. A biogeographer's main focus is on how the environment and humans affect the distribution of species as well as other manifestations of Life such as species or genetic ...
The history of biology traces the study of the living world from ancient to modern times. Although the concept of biology as a single coherent field arose in the 19th century, the biological sciences emerged from traditions of medicine and natural history reaching back to Ayurveda, ancient Egyptian medicine and the works of Aristotle, Theophrastus and Galen in the ancient Greco-Roman world.
Energy flow is the flow of energy through living things within an ecosystem. [1] All living organisms can be organized into producers and consumers, and those producers and consumers can further be organized into a food chain. [2] [3] Each of the levels within the food chain is a trophic level. [1]
Chronobiology – field of biology that examines periodic (cyclic) phenomena in living organisms and their adaptation to solar- and lunar-related rhythms. Dendrochronology – study of tree rings, using them to date the exact year they were formed in order to analyze atmospheric conditions during different periods in natural history.