5 public questions tagged with this topic.
Ecosystem diversity is one of the three levels of biodiversity and refers to the variety of habitats and ecosystems present in a region.
Ref: NCERT Class 12 Biology Chapter 13: Biodiversity and Conservation Loss of Biodiversity - Alien Invasion Co-extinction Mass Extinction - Evil Quartet
Ecosystem diversity refers to the variety of habitats and ecosystems, such as forests, deserts, wetlands, and coral reefs.
Ref: NCERT Class 12 Biology Chapter 13: Biodiversity and Conservation Biodiversity - Levels - Genetic Species Ecological
Genetic variation belongs to genetic diversity, whereas ecosystem diversity includes different ecosystems such as deserts, rainforests, wetlands, and coral reefs.
Ref: NCERT Class 12 Biology Chapter 13: Biodiversity and Conservation Biodiversity - Levels - Genetic Species Ecological
Evenness measures how uniformly individuals are distributed among the species present. Two communities may contain the same number of species yet differ greatly in diversity if one is dominated by a single species while the other has comparable abundances throughout. Richness counts species without considering their relative numbers, whereas dominance emphasizes concentration in one or a few taxa. Turnover instead describes compositional change across places or times. Thus abundance differences are captured specifically by evenness, an essential component of indices such as Shannon diversity. Mechanistic reasoning is essential here: classifications should follow measurable consequences for survival, reproduction, resource acquisition, or detection. Context can modify interaction strength, but it does not erase the defining contrast among the alternatives presented. At population level, this mechanism can influence abundance, coexistence, and evolutionary selection. Separating immediate individual effects from longer-term community outcomes gives the selected concept a clearer ecological meaning and avoids relying only on memorized terminology.
Ref: NCERT Biology Class 12, Ch. 15 Biodiversity and Conservation
An ecotone is the transition zone between two neighbouring ecosystems or communities. Because environmental conditions and resources overlap, it can contain species from both adjoining systems as well as edge specialists that occur mainly in the transition. This combination can produce the edge effect—locally elevated richness, abundance, or interaction intensity. Examples include a forest–grassland margin, an estuary between river and sea, or a marsh–upland boundary. Elevated diversity is not inevitable: abrupt human-created edges may exclude interior specialists, increase predation or invasion, and impose stressful microclimates. Nevertheless, the defining idea is mixed membership plus potential unique boundary species. A biome is a very large climatic vegetation unit, an ecotype is a genetically differentiated local population, and a clone is a set of genetically identical organisms; none denotes a community boundary. Ecotones may be sharp or broad and can shift with succession, hydrology, climate, or land use. Their mixed composition makes them important for studying species turnover and landscape connectivity, while their sensitivity to environmental change can make them useful ecological indicators.
Ref: NCERT Biology Class 12, Ch. 15 Biodiversity and Conservation
