this post was submitted on 13 Sep 2025
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Biodiversity

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A community about the variety of life on Earth at all levels; including plants, animals, bacteria, and fungi.



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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...

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The Atlas blue butterfly is found in the mountain ranges of Morocco and northeast Algeria.

While it had been suspected to have the most chromosome pairs in the animal kingdom, this is the first time experts have sequenced the butterfly genome to confirm.

For comparison, a close relative found widely in the UK, the common blue butterfly (Polyommatus icarus), has 24 chromosomes.

Changes in chromosome numbers are thought to contribute to the process of new species forming and help species adapt to their environment.

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[–] feddylemmy@lemmy.world 3 points 3 days ago

I wonder what the evolutionary mechanism is to determine how many pairs of chromosomes there are. Is there a benefit to having many or just a few?