ECOLOGICAL BIODIVERSITY AND GLOBAL FOOD PRODUCTION
food gap food miles
genetically modified (GM)
In this chapter, you will learn to: / understand that Earth’s ecosystems work together as the biosphere / outline how humans benefit from and pollute Earth’s ecosystems / explain the role of humans in conserving ecosystems / understand that the global population needs a sustainable supply of food
/ describe how humans can help to close the food gap.
The biosphere
In chapter 9, we learned that an ecosystem is all the communities in an area interacting with each other and their environment. No ecosystem exists in isolation. Organisms, energy and matter move between ecosystems, and any change in one has an effect on other ecosystems.
Healthy ecosystems allow a wide range of different species to exist and promote biodiversity. Ecosystems such as grassland, woodland, rivers and oceans all support a huge number of different organisms. Together, the many ecosystems that support life on Earth are called the biosphere.
:Fig. 13.1 The biosphere is all the ecosystems together that support life on Earth ? TEST TUBE 1. Explain the term ‘biosphere’. 128 Elements of Science