Table 1 Major concepts relating to biodiversity topics that students must understand from an evolutionary perspective. This list is not exhaustive, nor does it contain all the nuances of these topics
Evolutionary and Biodiversity topics | Questions | Some related concepts |
|---|---|---|
Origin of biodiversity | How do new species come into being? | Speciation, Fossil records, Macroevolution |
Where do new traits come from? | ||
Evolutionary patterns | What drives the patterns of diversity that we see across the earth? | Macroevolution, Fossil records, Developmental biology, Biogeography |
Why is life so diverse? | ||
Why are there so many species on Earth? | ||
Evolutionary process | How do different species affect each other’s evolution? | Natural selection, Adaptation, Sexual selection, Genetic drift, Speciation |
How do species change over time? | ||
How are species often so well adapted to their current environment? | ||
Systematics, Evolution, and Biodiversity | How closely organisms are related to one another? | Phylogenetics, Common ancestry, Fossil records |
What are the advantages of using evolutionary relationships between organisms to inform biodiversity classification systems? | ||
Conservation of biodiversity | Why did some species go extinct? | Population genetics, Habitat loss, and fragmentation, Habitat changes, Extinction of species |
How can evolutionary knowledge inform conservation decisions? |