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Ecosystem diversity deals with the variations in ecosystems within a geographical location and its overall impact on human existence and the environment. Ecosystem diversity addresses the combined characteristics of biotic properties which are living organisms ( biodiversity ) and abiotic properties such as nonliving things like water or soil ...
The diversity of species and genes in ecological communities affects the functioning of these communities. These ecological effects of biodiversity in turn are affected by both climate change through enhanced greenhouse gases, aerosols and loss of land cover [citation needed], and biological diversity, causing a rapid loss of biodiversity and extinctions of species and local populations.
The 1992 United Nations Earth Summit defined biological diversity as "the variability among living organisms from all sources, including, inter alia, terrestrial, marine and other aquatic ecosystems and the ecological complexes of which they are part: this includes diversity within species, between species and of ecosystems". [15]
Ecosystems may be habitats within biomes that form an integrated whole and a dynamically responsive system having both physical and biological complexes. Ecosystem ecology is the science of determining the fluxes of materials (e.g. carbon, phosphorus) between different pools (e.g., tree biomass, soil organic material).
An important ecosystem function associated with biodiversity is pest control. [23] Control species can suppress pest populations and reduce loss of crop yields without the negative impacts of chemical pesticides. [24] This has economic benefits and maintaining natural pest control is important to humanity's ability to grow crops. [25]
As ecosystems age this supply diminishes, making phosphorus-limitation more common in older landscapes (especially in the tropics). [20]: 287–290 Calcium and sulfur are also produced by weathering, but acid deposition is an important source of sulfur in many ecosystems. Although magnesium and manganese are produced by weathering, exchanges ...
Local experts will explain the many contributions moths and frogs make to the environment.
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]