Species, taxonomy and biodiversity GapFill

Organisms can be grouped into  cellsgenesecosystemstaxa based on their evolutionary relationships using  mitoticbiodiversityanatomicalphylogenetic classification. Organisms are sorted into increasingly small groups based on a hierarchy, starting with  family and orderdomain and kingdomphylum and domainorder and class, and finishing with a binomial name consisting of  family and genusphylum and speciesgenus and speciesspecies and breed, which uniquely identifies a species.

A species is a group of organisms that can interbreed to produce  gametesfertile offspringnew geneshomologous chromosomes. Individuals that can breed together may use  courtship behaviourmating allelesgenetic markersphysiological adaptations in order to recognise and signal to each other.

Biodiversity indicates the number and variety of organisms in a region, and can be measured in several ways:

 An organism surveyAn organism sumSpecies evennessSpecies richness measures the total number of species in a community.

 An index of diversityA belt transectA random sampleCommunity summation relates the number of species in a community to the number of individuals of each species present.

Genetic diversity is a measure of the number of  alleleschromosomesadultsspecies within a population.

 WoodworkingHuntingFarmingMining often works in opposition to biodiversity because crops are usually carefully cultivated to be the only species present in an area, and may also be selected to have shared or similar characteristics. It needs to be balanced with  cullingconservationharvestingtourism in order to maintain natural habitats, e.g. by replanting hedgerows at field margins, and using  eutrophicationleachingcrop rotationpesticides to maintain soil quality over several seasons.

Genetic diversity was traditionally measured by simply observing differences in characteristics; however, with the advancement of gene technology, scientists can now directly compare  enzymeDNA and mRNAtRNAlipid sequences to determine differences. The  amino acidphosphateantibodygene sequences of proteins produced by organisms can also be compared to measure similarities and differences between species or individuals.