A bit about biodiversity

First things first, I am apologizing for the horrible quality of the first video. I made it small so I could up load it easier and didn't realize so much of the quality of the original would be lost. I promise to update the video soon to a better quality. Also, I plan on doing these about once a week or bi weekly, so keep checking for new ones. Don't worry though, there will be lots of other content I will include on here as well. It will only be this way for a while (I hope) as I get better with the film editing equipment, the videos may be more frequent.

Now, on to the topic!

Biodiversity is a term that seems to be thrown around quite a bit, but what does it mean? Well, it can mean all the speciation in an area, an ecosystem, a certain biome, or even the entire earth. for example, my house (area) does not have a lot of biodiversity compared to St. Thomas' dry forests (biome), but the biodiversity increases a bit up Crown Mountain, the mountain I live on, due to a pocket of moisture that occurs crating a unique ecosystem. Now that I have you thoroughly confused, I will break that down a bit more.

Okay, biomes are not to be confused with ecosystems. A biome is an area of ecologically similar ecosystems (think communities of organisms) that is climatically and geographically defined. There are a few factors that go into determining a biome. On the climate side, it's limited to humidity, altitude, and latitude. For example: Tropical (latitude) Rain forest (humidity) is a biome. If you took down some of that forest to build a resort, the area around that resort plus the resort is an ecosystem. In ecosystems you include abiotic factors as well (think buildings, fences and man's interventions).

This is a tropical rain forest. The whole of it is a biome.

If you were studying the specific animals and plants
around this waterfall, you would be studying an
ecosystem within the biome!

Hopefully, everyone understood that! You are now officially on your way to become expert ecologists... well, at least well versed enough in science that people will think you're smart and so interesting to talk to at the next social event.

By the way all these pictures are Copyright to me under Creative Commons. You can use them, just give me credit somewhere please!