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For example, it was estimated in 2007 that up to 30% of all species will be extinct by 2050. [4] Destroying habitats for farming is a key reason why biodiversity is decreasing today. Climate change also plays a role. [5] [6] This can be seen for example in the effects of climate change on biomes.
Biodiversity plays an important role in ecosystem services which by definition maintain and improve human quality of life. [ 14 ] [ 17 ] [ 18 ] Conservation priorities and management techniques require different approaches and considerations to address the full ecological scope of biodiversity.
[4]: 1242 Marine primary producers are important because they underpin almost all marine animal life by generating most of the oxygen and food that provide other organisms with the chemical energy they need to exist. The principal marine primary producers are cyanobacteria, algae and marine plants.
Species richness, or biodiversity, increases from the poles to the tropics for a wide variety of terrestrial and marine organisms, often referred to as the latitudinal diversity gradient. [1] The latitudinal diversity gradient is one of the most widely recognized patterns in ecology. [1] It has been observed to varying degrees in Earth's past. [2]
Life arose from the Earth's first ocean, which formed some 3.8 billion years ago. [33] Since then, water continues to be the most abundant molecule in every organism. Water is important to life because it is an effective solvent, capable of dissolving solutes such as sodium and chloride ions or other small molecules to form an aqueous solution.
Global biodiversity is the measure of biodiversity on planet Earth and is defined as the total variability of life forms. More than 99 percent of all species [1] that ever lived on Earth are estimated to be extinct. [2] [3] Estimates on the number of Earth's current species range from 2 million to 1 trillion, but most estimates are around 11 ...
The Earth has many diverse ecosystems and ecologicalsystem diversity. These are NASA composite images of the Earth: 2001 (left), 2002 (right), titled The Blue Marble. Ecosystem diversity deals with the variations in ecosystems within a geographical location and its overall impact on human existence and the environment.
Communities interacting not only with each other but also with the physical environment encompass an ecosystem, such as the Savanna ecosystem. All of the ecosystems make up the biosphere, the area of life on Earth. The simple standard biological organisation scheme, from the lowest level to the highest level, is as follows: [1]