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Home Q & A Board Biology-Related Homework Help Environmental and Conservation Biology
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o2blea o2blea
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11 years ago
is it true that biodiversity decreases the stability of ecosystems because of competition?
so..
would the increase of biodiversity of an ecosystem result to more niches?
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#1
11 years ago
When I was studying the applied maths of ecosystems, it was conventional thinking that biodiversity *increases* the stability of ecosystems.

If you have an ecosystem with 1 predator and 1 prey species, then you can have vicious cycles of extreme population growth and decline.

With more species, that kind of phenomena is generally not observed in nature.
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#2
11 years ago
No, it increases stability because of "back-up". If your market ran out of tomatoes, would you starve? No, because there are other things you could eat.

Generally, it is more niches that result in more biodiversity, rather than the other way around.
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