BIO 181 Midterm: Unit 3
7 Jan 2019
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Explain why biodiversity it such an essential topic, and why it"s so important to understand now. Biodiversity allows us to understand the different forms of life and the behaviors of each form of life. We need to understand it now because the normal extinction rate is 100 species/year, however the current extinction rate is 100,000 species/year. Identify which groups of organisms are most at-risk of extinction, and why it"s a serious threat to all other groups. 30-40% of known amphibians, reptiles, fish, insects. It"s a serious threat because increased diversity leads to increased stability and survival. Describe benefits and drawbacks of each: modern phylogeny conveys the same sort of information that is conveyed by trees. In modern phylogeny classifications, the organisms are arranged according to their ancestral history and their traits present through evolution: a strictly linnaean system of classification might place the birds and the non-avian dinosaurs into two separate groups.
