Adaptation to Niche Measuring Genetic Biodiversity
Every species is a part of the complex system of interactions
between the physical word and other living organisms. We call
this system ecology. Each species exists in a specific niche. The
niche occupied by an organism is its role in the community
Successful Adaptation
A successful species is well adapted, because it has
characteristics that increase their chances of survival and
reproduction.
• Anatomical structure- the form and structure of the
organism
• Physiological adaptation- the way the body of the
organism works and include the differences in bio
chemical pathways or enzymes
• Behavioral adaptations- changes to programmed or
instinctive behavior making organisms better
adapted for survival
Camels: The Ultimate Survivors
They live and breed in some of the hottest, driest and most
inhospitable niches available. Camels a have huge range of
anatomical, psychological and behavioral adaptations, and the
combination of all of them means they are the ultimate
survivors.
Some Anatomical Adaptations
• Good vision and eyes are protected by long lashes from
the sand
• Nostrils are large and slit-like and the camel can close
them to protect against the wind and sand
• The upper lip is split, hairy and sensitive
• A hump helps to insulate the animal from the heat of the
sun
• Feet are large and flat with tough pads
Some Physiological adaptations
Thermoregulation
• The camel can withstand a wide variation of internal
body temperatures
• Camels can lose 30% of their body weight through water
loss and then make it up in 10 minutes drinking water
• Camels have hump on the back where the mostly fatty
tissue is found. Water is produced as by-product of
respiration
Water balance
Camels has to survive without water for long periods of time
• Camel body tissue can withstand a loss of up to 30% of
the body water without damage
• The fat hump acts as energy store. 20kg of fat is 21kg of
water
• Kidneys are adapted to produce very concentrated urine
• Camels can continue to produce dilute milk even when
they are dehydrated
Classification
• Without variation population is vulnerable Taxonomy is the science of describing and naming living organisms
• Genetic variation is analyzed by comparing particular DNA The main taxonomic groups are: domain, kingdom, phylum/division,
regions for differences and similarities class, order, family, genus, and species
• Scientists look at the proportion of population which is The Archaea domain contains one kingdom:
heterozygous for given feature • Archaebacteria: ancient bacteria though to be early
• When DNA is analyzed, only one band will show up if an relatives of eukaryotes. They were found in extreme
organism is a homozygote. For heterozygotes, two bands will environments.
appear The Bacteria domain also contains one kingdom:
• This can be used to calculate the heterozygous index • Eubacteria: the true bacteria are what we normally think of
• High heterozygous index suggests that the population is healthy when we are describing the bacteria that cause, for
example, disease, and which are so useful in the digestive
systems.
Biodiversity, and
There are four kingdoms in the Eukaryote domain:
• Protista
Classification,
•
Conservation
Fungi
• Plantae
• Animalia
The Hardy-Weinberg Equilibrium
The amount of change that takes place in the frequency of alleles in a
population indicates whether the population is stable or is evolving.
It states that in population that is not evolving, the allele frequencies
in the population will remain stable from one generation to the next
if there are no evolutionary influences.
Condition for The Hardy-Weinberg Equilibrium The Binomial System
• Every organism is given two Latin names
• There are no mutations
• There is random mating o The genus name
o Second is the species name
• The population is large
• Use italics
• The population is isolated
• Genus name has upper-case letter and species name has lower-
• There is no selection pressure
case letter
Upsetting the gene-pool equilibrium results in the formation of new
After the first use, binomial names are abbreviated
species
Evidence shows that all three groups had a
common ancestor
 Biodiversity
• All organisms in an ecosystem are interdependent,
and they can affect the physical conditions around
them. Rich biodiversity allows large-scale
ecosystems to function and self-regulate.
• If biodiversity is reduced in one area, the natural
balance may be destroyed elsewhere.
• Biodiversity provides the genetic variation that has
allowed us to develop crops, livestock, fisheries
and forests
Assessing Biodiversity at the Species Level
Biodiversity can be measured in several ways. There are two
main factors which needed to be considered when measuring
biodiversity:
• The species richness
o Wet tropics and coral reefs are
generally areas of highest biodiversity
• The relative species abundance
o Distribution of different species
Species
The Morphological Species Concept
The definition of species that Linnaeus developed was a
morphological species model, which is based solely on the
appearance. Much of the classification we use now is based on
morphology. It has limitations, for example, many organisms show
sexual dimorphism.
The Reproductive or Biological Species Concept
• A group of organisms with similar characteristics that
interbreed to produce fertile offspring
Limitations
• Populations of organisms of the same species may not
interbreed because they are in different places and not
because they different species
• Lion and tiger are different species, but can produce a
fertile offspring
More sophisticated definition
• A group of organisms with similar characteristics that
are potentially capable of breeding to produce fertile
offspring
• A group of organisms in which genes can flow between
individuals
Limitations
• Plants frequently interbreed with similar species
Other Definitions of Species
• Ecological species model-based on the ecological niche
occupied by an organism
• Mate-recognition species model- a concept based on
unique fertilization system, including mating behavior.
• Genetic species model- based on DNA profiling. The
most reliable
Limitations
1. Finding new evidence- many species were never
observed mating
2. Plants of different species, but closely related
frequently interbreed
3. Many organisms do not reproduce sexually
4. Fossil organism cannot reproduce
Importance of DNA in Classification
In DNA sequencing the base sequences of all or part of the genome
of an organism is revealed. This leads to DNA profiling, which looks
at the non-coding area of DNA to identify patterns. These are unique
in individuals, but similar of patterns can be used to identify
relationships between individuals and even species.
Bioinformatics- organize and analyze enormous quantities of raw
biological data
Isolating Mechanisms
Different populations of the species usually have to become
reproductively slotted from each other
• Geographic isolation: a physical barrier such as a river
or a mountain range can separate individuals from an
original population
• Ecological isolation: two populations inhabit the same
region but develop preferences for different parts of the
habitat
• Seasonal isolation: the timing of flowering or sexual
receptiveness in some parts of a population becomes
different from usual timing for the group. This can
eventually lead to the group reproducing several
months apart
• Behavioral isolation: changes occur in the courtship
ritual, display or mating pattern so that animals do not
recognize others as being potential mating mates
• Mechanical isolation: a mutation occurs that changes
the genitalia of animals, so they can only mate
successfully with some members of the group
The Founder Effect
• Is the loss of genetic variation that occurs when a small
number of individuals leave the main population and set up
a separate new population, producing a voluntary
population bottleneck.
• Any unusual genes in the founder members of the new
population may become more frequent as the population
grows
Population Bottlenecks
• A large population is needed to maintain a large and diverse
gene pool
• The size of a population may be dramatically reduced by an
environmental disaster, a new disease, or hunting humans→
population bottleneck
Conservation
It means keeping and protecting a living and changing
environment
• Reclaiming land after industrial use
• Set up sustainable agriculture system
• Protection of a single threatened species
• Global legislation on pollution levels and
greenhouse gas emissions
• Ex-situ conservation
o We can conserve them outside their natural
habitat, in zoos or seed banks
• In-situ conservation
o Takes place in the natural habitat of the
organism
Ex-situ conservation
• When organism is threated with extinction, there is
no time to conserve their natural habitat or protect
them in situ
• At worst, this enables their genetic material to be
conserved, and at best a breeding enables their
genetic material to be returned to their natural
habitat
Ex-situ conservation of Animals
• Zoos and wildlife parks used to exist just for people
to look at the animals, but today they are very
important in animal conservation
o Captive breeding programs
• The ultimate attempt is to reintroduce the captive-
bred animals into the wild to restore the original
populations
Ex-situ Conservation of Plants
• Plants are vital importance to all our lives
• The genetic material of these extinct species would
be lost forever
• This would be a disaster for the plants and possible
for human survival
• A seed bank can preserve many plants in a state of
effective suspended animation
• Seeds are usually small, so large numbers of them
can be stored quite cheaply in a small space.
• However, some seeds do not store well (many crop
plants)
o They may be grown where they are found
naturally, in field gene banks such as
plantations, orchards and arboretums or as
tissue cultures
o Using tissue cultures to conserve plants and
growing plants on as needed takes up lot of
space and time, and allows more variety to be
conserved