INVESTIGATORY PROJECT OF BIOLOGY

ON
“BIODIVERSITY AND ITS CONSERVATION”

For the partial fulfilment of the conditions laid down by

AISSCE 2023-24

SUBMITTED BY
NAME- ARMON BHUYAN
CLASS - XII - A
AISSCE ROLL NO -

UNDER THE GUIDANCE OF

MR DILLIP MISHRA
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I would like to profound sense of gratitude to
my guide Mr Dillip Mishra ,my biology teacher
for his valuable guidance and suggestions
during preparation of my project work.

I am also extremely grateful to my

Principal , Mr Bipin Kumar Sahoo for his
encouragement and constant inspiration.

Date -

Signature of Student -
 DECLARATION
I, Armon Bhuyan ,a student of class XII of D.A.V
Public School, Pokhariput, hereby submit the
project entitled “Biology and its conservation ”
for the Biology practical of AISSCE 2023-24. This
project consists of the original work done by me
under the able guidance and supervision of my
Biology teacher Mr Dillip Mishra.

Signature of the student

 CERTIFICATE
This is to certify that the project entitled
“Biology and its conservation” is an original
piece of work by Armon Bhuyan of class XII Sec
A and is in accordance with the topic allocated
to him.
This project is submitted towards the
partial fulfilment of the conditions laid down for
AISSCE 2023-24 and embodies the work done by
him under my guidance and supervision.

Signature of external examiner

Signature of internal examiner

Signature of the Supervisor

Biodiversity
The occurrence of different types of genes, gene pools, species,
habitats, and ecosystem in a particular place and various parts of earth
is called biodiversity.
The term biodiversity was given by Edward Wilson.
 Genetic Diversity
 It is the measure of variety in genetic information contained in the
organisms.
It enables a population to adapt to its environment.
For example, medicinal plant Rauwolfia vomitoria growing in
Himalayan ranges shows variation in potency and concentration
of the active chemical reserpine that it produces.
There are more than 50,000 genetically different strains of rice
and 1,000 varieties of mangoes in Indian.
 Species diversity
 It is a measure of the variety of species and their relative
abundance present within a region.
 For example, the Western Ghats have a greater amphibian species
diversity than the Eastern Ghats.
Ecological diversity
 It is a measure of the diversity at community and ecosystem
levels. They represent the local, unite habitat and regional
components of species diversity.
 For example, ecological diversity is greater in India for to
presence of large number of ecosystem like deserts, rainforests,
coral reefs, wetlands, estuaries and alpine meadow.
Global species diversity

According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature

and natural resources or IUCN (2004), the total number of plant
and animal species is over 1.5 million.
A more conservative and scientifically sound estimate made by
Robert May , places the global species diversity at about 7 million.
 More than 70 per cent of all the species are animals, while plants
account for about 22 per cent of the total.
Amongst animals, insects comprise more than 70 per cent that
means, out if every 10 animals on the face of the planet, 7 are
insects.
 India has only 2.4 per cent of world’s land area and 8.1 per cent
global species diversity. There are nearly 45000 plants and twice
as many animals.
 Patterns of biodiversity
Biodiversity is not uniform throughout the world because it is affected
by two factors – latitudinal gradients and species area relationship.

1) Latitudinal gradients

 Biodiversity increases from poles to equators i.e. from high to low

latitude.
 Tropics (23.5°N to 23.5°S) have more species than temperate or
polar regions. For example, Columbia located near the equator
has 1400 species of birds while New York (41°N) has 105 species
and Greenland (71°N) has only 56 species.
Tropical rainforest of Amazon in South America possess the
greatest biodiversity on the earth with more thank 40,000 species
of plants, 3,000 of fishes 1,300 birds, 427 of mammals.427 of
amphibians, 378 of reptiles and more than 1,25,000 invertebrates.
Greater biodiversity is observed in tropics because:

 Temperate regions has been subjected to frequent glaciations in

the past but tropical regions remain undisturbed. Therefore
tropics had a longer evolutionary time for the species
classification.
 Temperate environment unlike the tropics are more seasonal, less
constant and unpredictable, resulting in less niche specialisation
and lesser species diversity.
 Tropics have greater solar energy exposure which contributes to
higher productivity and greater diversity.
Species-area relationship

 German naturalist and geographer Alexander Von Humboldt

observed that within an region, species richness increased with
increasing explored area but up to a limit.

The relationship between species richness and area for a wide
variety of taxa(like vascular plants, birds, bats and freshwater
fishes) appears as a rectangular hyperbola.

On a logarithmic scale, the relationship is a straight line described
by the following equation:
log S = log C +Z log A
where, S = species richness
A = Area
Z = Slope of the line ( regression coefficient)

C = Y- intercept
 The value of Z lies in the range of 0.1-0.2 regardless of taxonomic
group or the region.
However the analysis in a very large area like the whole continent
gives Z value that ranges from 0.6 to 1.2.
Importance of species diversity to the Ecosystem.
 Ecologists believe that communities with more species tend to be
more stable than those with less species .This was confirmed by
David Tilman.
Characteristics of stable community:
i. Productivity should not too much form year to year.
ii. It should be resistant to occasional natural and artificial
disturbance.
iii. It should be resistant to invasions by alien species.
 Importance of biodiversity for survival of species can be explained
by the ‘rivet popper hypothesis ’ proposed by Paul Ehrlich.
 This hypothesis assumes the ecosystem to be an airplane and the
species to be the rivets joining all parts together.
 If every passenger pops a rivet to take home ( resulting in species
extinction), it may not affect the flight safety initially (proper
ecosystem functioning) but with time as more rivets are removed
the plane becomes dangerously weak and fatal to the life of other
species.
Loss of biodiversity
 It is caused by overpopulation, urbanization, industrialization.
 The colonisation of tropical Pacific Islands by humans led to the
extinction of more than 2,000 species of native birds.
15,500 species are facing the threat of extinction worldwide.

At present, 31 per cent of gymnosperms, 32 per cent amphibians,
12 percent of bird species and 23 percent of mammals face the
 threat of extinction.
 Some recently extinct species are dodo ( Mauritius), quagga
(Africa), thylacine (Australia), Stellar's sea cow (Russia) and three
tiger species (Bali, Jawan, Caspian).

Loss of biodiversity in a region may lead to

 Decrease in plant production.
 Less resistance to environment disturbances such as drought.
Increased variability in ecosystem processes like plants
 productivity, water use pest and disease cycles.
Causes of biodiversity losses.
There are four major causes of biodiversity loss. These are also known a
‘The Evil Quartel’ .

Habitat loss and fragmentation

Destruction of habitat is the primary cause of extinction of
species.

The tropical rainforest initially covered 14 per cent of the land
surface of earth, but now cover only 6 percent of land area.
 The Amazon rainforest (called the lungs of the planet) is being cut
and cleared for cultivation of soya beans and for conversions into
grassland for raising beef cattle.
 When large-sized habitats are broken or fragmented due to
human settlements, building of roads, digging of canals, etc. the
population of animals requiring large territories and some animals
with migratory habitats decline.
Over-exploitation
 When biological system is over exploited by man for the natural
resources, it results in degradation and extinction of resources.

For example, passenger pigeon and many marine fishes.

Exotic species invasions

 Some alien species when introduced unintentionally or
deliberately became invasive and cause harmful impact, resulting
in extinction of indigenous species.
 Nile perch, a large predator fish when introduced in Lake Victoria,
caused the extinction of an ecologically unique species of Cichild
fish in the lake.
 Invasive weed species like Parthenium (carrot grass), Lantana and
Eicchornia (water hyacinth) caused environmental damage and
posed threat to our native species.
Introduction of African catfish ( Clarias gariepinus ) for
aquaculture purposes is posing a threat to the indigenous cat
fishes of Indian rivers.
Co-extinction
 When a species become extinct, the plant and animal species
associated with it in an obligatory manner, also become extinct.
 For example, if the host fish species becomes extinct, all those
parasites exclusively dependent on it, will also become extinct; in
plant-pollinator mutualism also, extinction of one results in the
extinction of the other.
Reasons of biodiversity conservation.
There are three main reasons for conserving the biodiversity which
have been classified into the following categories:

Narrowly utilitarian arguments

 Human beings derive direct economic benefits from the nature,
like food, firewood, fibre, construction material, industrial
products ( resins, gums, dyes, tannins, etc. ) and medicinally
important products.
 More that 25 per cent of the drugs are derived from plants and
about 25,000 species of plants are used by native people as
traditional medicines.
Broadly utilitarian arguments
 Biodiversity plays a major role in maintaining and sustaining
supply of goods and services from various species as well as
ecological systems.
The different ecological services provided are:
a) Amazon forest is estimated to contribute, 20 percent of the
total oxygen in the atmosphere on earth.
b) Ecosystem provides pollinators like bees, bumble bees, birds
and bats which pollinate plants to form fruits and seeds.
c) Aesthetic pleasure like bird watching, spring flowers in full
bloom, walking through the thick forest, waking up to
bulbul's song etc. are some other benefits of the ecosystem.

Ethical reasons
There are thousands of plants animals and microbes on this earth
which are not useless. Every one has some intrinsic value even if it is of
no economic value to us.
IIt is, therefore our moral duty to ensure well – being of all the living
creatures for utilisation of future generations.
Conservation if Biodiversity
 Biodiversity can be conserved by protecting its whole ecosystem.
 There are two basic approaches for conservation if biodiversity.

In situ conservation (On site conservation)

This approach involves protection of species in their natural habitat.

Biodiversity Hotspots

These are regions of high levels of species richness and high
degree of endemism.

Endemic species are species confined only to a limited
region.
There are 34 Hotspots in the world.

In India, the three hot spots are Western Ghats and Sri
Lanka, Indo – Burma and Himalaya.
These reduce mass extinction by 30%.
Protected Areas
 India has 14 biosphere reserves, 90 national parks and 448 wildlife
sanctuaries.
 Jim Corbett National park was the first to be established in India.

Ramsar sites
 Ramsar sites are wetlands which are considered to be of
international importance.
 There are 26 Ramsar sites in India. Some of these are chilika lake,
Rudrasagar lake, etc
Sacred groves
These are forest patches set aside for worship. All the tree and wildlife
within are given protection by tribal people.

Ex situ conservation
 This approach involves placing threatened animals and plants in
special care units for their protection.
 India has 35 botanical gardens and 275 zoological parks where
animals which has become extinct in wild are maintained.

By using cyropreservation technique sperms, eggs, animal cells,
can be stored for long periods in gene banks, seed banks, etc.

Plants are propagated in vitro using tissue culture methods.
Conclusion…
 The Earth summit was held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, which call
led upon all nations to take appropriate measures for
conservation if biodiversity and sustainable development.
 The World Summit on Sustainable development was held in
Johannesburg, South Africa in 2002 in which 190 countries
pledged to reduce the current rate of diversity loss at global,
regioal and local level by 2010.