3.1 Biodiversity and evolution

• Total diversity of living systems • Habitat diversity, species diversity, genetic diversity

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• Components of diversity contribute to ecological system resilience

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• Cumulative change in heritable characteristics

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• Mechanism driving evolutionary change • Operates continuously over billions of years

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• Variation, overproduction, competition for limited resources • Differences in adaptation affect survival and reproduction rates • Heritable variation → increased frequency of advantageous genes

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• Generation of new species through evolution • Population isolation → adaptation → inability to interbreed

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• Richness: number of species in community • Evenness: similarity of population sizes

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• Quantitative measure of species diversity • Allows ecosystem comparison and monitoring change over time

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• Knowledge of global and regional biodiversity is needed for the development of effective management strategies to conserve biodiversity • Include: how knowledge of biodiversity is gathered in the local region • This is likely to involve citizen science and the work of voluntary and government-funded agencies • The training of indigenous people and others, such as parabiologists, is also used to gather information for use in conservation management

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• Mutation and sexual reproduction increase genetic diversity • Mutation generates new variants of genes; sexual reproduction generates new combinations of genes

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• Reproductive isolation can be achieved by geographical separation or, for populations living in the same area, by ecological or behavioural differences • Include: two contemporary examples of speciation and their causes • (Examples such as giraffes are unsuitable as they illustrate evolutionary change rather than speciation.) Separation of bonobos • Consider: reasons for high rates of endemism on isolated islands

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• Biodiversity is spread unevenly across the planet, and certain areas contain a particularly large proportion of species, especially species that are rare and endangered • Many biodiversity hotspots are in tropical biomes

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• Human activities have impacted the selective forces acting on species within ecosystems, resulting in evolutionary change in these species • Consider: human activities that have affected natural selection, e.g., climate change due to burning fossil fuels, hunting/poaching/harvesting, or creation of new habitats • Include: the example of the tuskless elephants in Gorongosa, Mozambique or a local example

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• Artificial selection reduces genetic diversity and, consequently, species resilience • Include: the distinction between natural selection, which is not deliberate, and artificial selection • The vulnerability of artificially selected species (livestock or crops) can be used to highlight the importance of genetic diversity to preserve resilience within a population • Consider: the value of genetic diversity from both economic and environmental perspectives

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• Earth history extends over a period of 4.5 billion years • Processes that occur over an extended timescale have led to the evolution of life on Earth • Include: the role of fossils in explaining the evolution of life over the geological timescale

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• Earth history is divided up into geological epochs according to the fossil record • The geological timescale is divided into eons, which are further classified into eras, periods and epochs • Changes in these time frames are marked by major geological and biological events • The division between one epoch and the next is marked by significant changes in fossils, indicating environmental changes causing many extinctions

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• Mass extinctions are followed by rapid rates of speciation due to increased niche availability • The five mass extinctions in the past have been caused by various factors, such as tectonic plate movements, super-volcanic eruption, climatic changes, sea-level changes

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• The Anthropocene is a proposed geological epoch characterized by rapid environmental change and species extinction due to human activity • There is debate about the existence and beginning of the Anthropocene epoch • Various start dates have been proposed for the epoch • Suitable “golden spikes” in the geological strata marking the proposed beginning include the 1610 dip in carbon dioxide caused by the arrival of Europeans in the Americas

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• Human impacts are having a planetary effect, which will be detectable in the geological record • Changes to the geological record support the argument for the Anthropocene being denoted a separate epoch from the Holocene • Consider: at least four examples of evidence for the Anthropocene • Signals from chemical pollution that are currently accumulating in geological strata, with the potential to be preserved into the far future

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