Biodiversity is the variety and variability of life on Earth. Biodiversity is typically a measure of variation at the genetic, species, and ecosystem level. Biodiversity plays an important role in ecosystem functioning. The reason for this is that ecosystem processes are driven by the number of species in an ecosystem, the exact nature of each individual species, and the relative abundance of organisms within these species.

Charismatic Megafauna (are large animal species with symbolic value or widespread popular appeal, and are often used by environmental activists to gain public support for environmentalist goals. Examples include the Bengal tiger, African Lion, humpback whale, giant panda, bald eagle, California condor, harp seal, and penguin. Numerous charismatic species are endangered by hunting and black market commerce)

Calling it a night.....................................

Darwin's mechanistic explanation for the emergence and maintenance of biological diversity provides the conceptual basis for a self-consistent theory of ecology ..

Extremophile (is an organism with optimal growth in environmental conditions considered extreme in that it is challenging for a carbon-based life form, such as all known life on Earth, to survive)

Off to work..........................

Fundamental Niche: This type of niche is the one that implies the range of different conditions in which organisms can live and reproduce their species.

Gallery Forest (is one formed as a corridor along rivers or wetlands, projecting into landscapes that are otherwise only sparsely treed such as savannas, grasslands, or deserts. Gallery forests are able to exist where the surrounding landscape does not support forests for a number of reasons. The riparian zones in which they grow offer greater protection from fire which would kill tree seedlings. In addition, the alluvial soils of the gallery habitat are often of higher fertility and have better drainage than the soils of the surrounding landscape with a more reliable water supply at depth. As a result, the boundary between gallery forest and the surrounding woodland or grassland is usually abrupt, with the ecotone being only a few metres wide)

A herbivore is an animal that gets its energy from eating plants, and only plants. Insects, rodents, rabbit, deer, cow, buffalo, goat are some of the common herbivores in the terrestrial ecosystem and small crustaceans, mollusks, etc. in the aquatic habitat.

Insular/Island Biogeography (is a field within biogeography that examines the factors that affect the species richness and diversification of isolated natural communities. The theory was originally developed to explain the pattern of the species–area relationship occurring in oceanic islands. Under either name it is now used in reference to any ecosystem (present or past) that is isolated due to being surrounded by unlike ecosystems, and has been extended to mountain peaks, seamounts, oases, fragmented forests, and even natural habitats isolated by human land development. The field was started in the 1960s by the ecologists Robert H. MacArthur and E. O. Wilson, who coined the term island biogeography in their inaugural contribution to Princeton's Monograph in Population Biology series, which attempted to predict the number of species that would exist on a newly created island)

Calling it a night......................................

The Joint Nature Conservation Committee is the public body that advises the UK Government and devolved administrations on UK-wide and international nature conservation. Originally established under the Environmental Protection Act 1990, JNCC was reconstituted by the Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act 2006.

Going a little outside the box.....

Ktizo