Biodiversity
Welcome to c/Biodiversity @ Mander.xyz!
A community about the variety of life on Earth at all levels; including plants, animals, bacteria, and fungi.
Notice Board
This is a work in progress, please don't mind the mess.
2023-06-16: We invite our users to contribute resources for the sidebar.
2023-06-15: Looking for mods!
About
Biodiversity is a term used to describe the enormous variety of life on Earth. It can be used more specifically to refer to all of the species in one region or ecosystem. Biodiversity refers to every living thing, including plants, bacteria, animals, and humans. Scientists have estimated that there are around 8.7 million species of plants and animals in existence. However, only around 1.2 million species have been identified and described so far, most of which are insects. This means that millions of other organisms remain a complete mystery.
Over generations, all of the species that are currently alive today have evolved unique traits that make them distinct from other species. These differences are what scientists use to tell one species from another. Organisms that have evolved to be so different from one another that they can no longer reproduce with each other are considered different species. All organisms that can reproduce with each other fall into one species. Read more...
Rules
- Don't throw mud. Be kind and remember the human.
- Keep it rooted (on topic).
- No spam.
Quick Links
Resources
- The Convention on Biological Diversity (UN)
- The Biodiversity Heritage Library
- Maps of the World's Biodiversity
- Ecosystems and Human Well-Being (free e-book)
- Falling Fruit: Map of the Urban Harvest
Bypass Paywalls
- On Ethics 1 2 3 4
- WaybackMachine (archive.org)
- Behind the Overlay Browser Extension
- ladder
- Anna's Archive
- Bypass Paywalls Browser Extension (see readme for Chrome & mobile options.)
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Sister Communities
Science and Research
Biology and Life Sciences
- !anthropology@mander.xyz
- !microbiology@mander.xyz
- !biodiversity@mander.xyz
- !palaeoecology@mander.xyz
- !palaeontology@mander.xyz
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Physical Sciences
Humanities and Social Sciences
- !archaeology@mander.xyz
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Memes
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This is the best summary I could come up with:
Since then, Gianoli’s research has shown that B. trifoliolata, native to southern South America, can mimic the leaf shape, size, and even color of more than a dozen plants.
On one side are mainstream botanists, whose work is rooted in rigorous, repeatable studies, and on the other is a small group of researchers who believe plants share a number of attributes with animals, including humans.
“I am very skeptical of this work, to say the least,” said Lincoln Taiz, a professor emeritus at the University of California Santa Cruz and co-editor of the textbook Plant Physiology and Development.
There’s also no clear evidence of synapses in plant cells, according to a recent review he co-authored, which includes several other reasons why such a brain-like structure couldn’t exist.
You can think of plants as mini ecosystems that harbor a wide diversity of microbial life, not unlike an old tree in a forest that’s home to monkeys and lizards and bugs.
Remarkably, research suggests that microbes can even control which genes in a plant’s DNA are turned on, in some cases helping them survive in harsh conditions, such as salty soil.
The original article contains 2,300 words, the summary contains 189 words. Saved 92%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
That's a terrible summary.