Zoology An Introduction

By Knowledge Flow

Zoology is the branch of biology that deals with the animal kingdom. It’s the scientific study of everything having to do with animals, same as botany is the scientific study of plants. Zoology is a briefly explained field which covers the classification, kingdom of every animal on earth as well as many broader field information and inquiry related to animal life and their behavior.
The term zoology was fairly simple back in the 4th Century BC, when the ancient Greek philosopher, Aristotle, proposed some of the first broad of classifications of living beings. He was logically divided and categorized all living beings into animals.
Topics cover in Zoology: An Introduction are Biodiversity, Taxonomy, Classification of Animals I, Classification of Animals II, Animal Tissues, Nutrition and Food in Animals, Respiration System in Animals, Animal Circulatory System, Excretion and Osmoregulation, Movement and Locomotion, Nervous System and Reproduction in Animals.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Knowledge Flow
• Release date: Sep 3, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005999179

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Zoology: An Introduction

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Contents

Chapter 1: Biodiversity

Chapter 2: Taxonomy

Chapter 3: Classification of Animals I

Chapter 4: Classification of Animals II

Chapter 5: Animal Tissues

Chapter 6: Nutrition and Food in Animals

Chapter 7: Respiration System in Animals

Chapter 8: Animal Circulatory System

Chapter 9: Excretion and Osmoregulation

Chapter 10: Movement and Locomotion

Chapter 11: Nervous System

Chapter 12: Reproduction in Animals

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Biodiversity

Introduction to Zoology

Z

oology is the branch of biology which deals with the animal kingdom. It’s the study of science includes everything what animals do. Zoology is a vast field that covers the classification of all animals on earth as well as focuses on the lives of animals, including aquatic and terrestrial life. Zoologist can research, how animals interact with each other and survive to their environments and a species as a whole or analyze individual organisms.

Biodiversity

The word biodiversity covers variety of biological life at more than one scale. It is not only the diversity of species including both plant and animal but also the diversity of genes within those species and the difference of ecosystems in which the species reside. On Earth, is occupied by variety of living organisms. They are estimated to have 6 to 29 million species of living organisms live in various environments.

Only 2.5 million species of living organisms have been defined by their scientific names in which over 1.4 million are animal species and out of which 740,000 belong to insect species alone and over 350,000 species of plants including fungi, algae, invertebrates, mosses and higher types of plants. Thus the existence of variety of a species or genus is known as Biodiversity.

Importance of Biodiversity

Ecosystems provide processes such as pollination, seed dispersal, water purification, nutrient cycling, climate regulation and control of agricultural pests. Many plants having flowers depend on pollination through animals and 30% of human crops are completely dependent on the free processes of pollinators. We need biodiversity to fulfill basic needs like water, food, fuel and medicine. In this world, much of population uses plants and animals as a primary source of medicine and in alone 57% population of United States use 150 most prescribed drugs have their genesis in biodiversity.

History

In earlier, the word biodiversity was used in political matters than scientific, the United Nations of the world have held many conferences and introduced important resolutions to ensure the sustainability of earth. The Environmental Agency of United Nations announced the International Conference on Human Environment at Stockholm in 1972 and the mission of conference was Only One Earth. In 1982, United Nations was held a conference on Environment at Nairobi.

At Rio de Janeiro, United Nations again held a conference Earth summit that focusing our common future in 1992 and again a world summit was held in Johannesburg in 2002. The motto of all these summits was the importance of biodiversity and its conservation to safeguard sustainable earth.

Types of Biodiversity

There are several types of biodiversity, each type representing how diverse the species, genes and resources are in an area.

Species Diversity

Ecosystem Diversity

Functional Diversity

Genetic Diversity

Species Diversity

Every ecosystem accommodates variety of species; all species are related to each other. Some ecosystems may contain more species than other ecosystems and in some ecosystems only one species has developed widely which dominates the natural community. The biodiversity of large number of species ecosystems are better than no less species ecosystems. A large number of species can repossess an ecosystem from ecological threats than some species.

Ecosystem Diversity

A region may contain one or more ecosystems. Large deserts or oceans are represents the regions with low ecological diversity. A region has mountain, forests, lakes and grasslands have higher biodiversity. A region with various ecosystems may provide more resources to adapt native species.

Functional Diversity

The ecosystem, where several species behave to obtain energy through food and use the natural resources of an ecosystem is called functional diversity. In general words a well