Biodiversity

Biodiversity [ Biology - Ecology ]
Or Biological diversity

Dictionary of botanic terminology - index of names


	Short for biological diversity. Biodiversity is a wide-ranging term indicating the immense variety and variability among living organisms and the ecosystems in which they occur on scales ranging from the smallest, at the chromosome level, to organisms, ecosystems, and even to entire landscapes. The diversity of life on Earth.

Includes: Ecosystem diversity Species diversity Genetic diversity Greater biodiversity makes species and systems more resilient, while loss of biodiversity weakens them, making them more vulnerable to extinction. It is also a fundamental requirement for adaptation and survival and continued evolution of species

Advertising

Holdfast roots [ Botany ]
Dictionary of botanic terminology - index of names

Some species of climbing plants develop holdfast roots which help to support the vines on trees, walls, and rocks. By forcing their way into minute pores and crevices, they hold the plant firmly in place.

Climbing plants, like the poison ivy (Toxicodendron radicans), Boston ivy (Parthenocissus tricuspidata), and trumpet creeper (Campsis radicans), develop holdfast roots which help to support the vines on trees, walls, and rocks. By forcing their way into minute pores and crevices, they hold the plant firmly in place. Usually the Holdfast roots die at the end of the first season, but in some species they are perennial. In the tropics some of the large climbing plants have hold-fast roots by which they attach themselves, and long, cord-like roots that extend downward through the air and may lengthen and branch for several years until they strike the soil and become absorbent roots.

Major references and further lectures:
1) E. N. Transeau “General Botany” Discovery Publishing House, 1994