There are many species of life on Earth, but why are insects so much more diverse than mammals and b

Updated on science 2024-07-04
14 answers
  1. Anonymous users2024-02-12

    There are many species of organisms on the earth, and the species of insects are much higher than those of mammals and birds, because insects have a lower evolutionary status, and they have a lower trophic level in the food chain and obtain more energy.

  2. Anonymous users2024-02-11

    Because the species of insects are relatively small, and they live in all small corners of the earth, they are also relatively easy to reproduce, so they are higher than mammals and birds.

  3. Anonymous users2024-02-10

    Because insects will appear longer than both mammals and birds, and will be of higher research value, the species will also be of a higher level.

  4. Anonymous users2024-02-09

    It is because of evolutionary reasons, and it is related to the environment in which they live, and different species choose different survival modes, so there will be a lot of species.

  5. Anonymous users2024-02-08

    Mammals and birds do belong to the dominant species. But it is also a relatively late evolutionary species, so it is not surprising that there are fewer species. There is another reason why they are all homeothermic animals.

    The energy consumed by homeothermic animals to maintain their body temperature accounts for the majority of the total energy consumed. In other words, these two types of animals consume more energy than other types of animals, and they need more materials for survival and reproduction. In nature, however, the available matter and energy are necessarily limited.

    This will inevitably affect and limit the development of the numbers and species of these two groups of animals. As long as there is no human influence, the natural world itself is in a state of equilibrium. What exists should be reasonable.

    There are relatively few species of mammals and birds, which should be normal and reasonable.

    Because the more dominant the species, the more evolutionary convergence there is, which results in fewer species.

    The so-called "advantage" means nothing more than "having a survival advantage and being competitive relative to other species".

    But correspondingly, this advantage brings that the competition between the same species will be particularly fierce - because everyone belongs to the same category, you are powerful and I am powerful, everyone grabs similar things, and the competition is very cruel.

    If everyone is powerful and evolves various types, then this "ecological niche" will be too crowded, unable to feed so diverse creatures, and some less powerful types will inevitably be eliminated, and in the end everyone will only be left with the most powerful tricks, and everyone will become the same.

    If it is a species that is not so "dominant", the competition between each other is very weak, and the living space is relatively large; At the same time, because the living space is relatively large, there are more patterns that have evolved each other, and if there are more patterns, they can not compete for the same thing, which further expands the living space and forms a virtuous circle. For example, there are many types of bacteria, and they can survive in any environment, and they just need to deal with natural challenges in a variety of ways.

    Therefore, it can be seen that the more high-end species have a survival advantage over other species, the more fierce their intraspecific competition will be, resulting in a single species; The more low-end species that do not have a survival advantage over other species, the more peaceful their intraspecific competition and the more diverse they are.

    In other words: there are thousands of solutions to nature's challenges, but there is often only one solution to the same kind of challenges.

    So don't think that the species has an advantage, you have an advantage, others have it, then you are likely to be a disadvantage.

    Therefore, it is also possible to estimate the intensity of intraspecific competition from the singleness of species.

  6. Anonymous users2024-02-07

    Mammals and birds are indeed the dominant species. But it's also a relatively new species, so it's not surprising that there are fewer species. Another reason is that they are both homeothermic animals.

    The energy used by endothermic bodies to maintain body temperature accounts for the majority of total energy expenditure. That is, these two types of animals, they consume more energy than other types of animals, and they need more material to survive and reproduce. In nature, the amount of matter and energy is necessarily limited.

    This will inevitably affect and limit the population and species development of these two groups of animals.

    As long as there is no human influence, nature itself is in a state of equilibrium. The existing ones should also be reasonable. The relatively small number of mammalian and bird species should make sense.

    Birds and mammals are the most complex and dominant groups of vertebrates. On the other hand, insects are invertebrates and most of the time they are just eaten because their structural defects are so obvious. If an insect can kill a bird, it must be something.

    However, an interesting fact is that 75% of the species in the animal kingdom are insects, totally over 1 million species, while mammals account for only about 4,000 species. Birds are slightly better, but only about 1%, or about 9,000 species. In fact, one of the reasons is that birds and mammals came later, after all, it took us a long time to get there.

    It takes time for species to accumulate, whereas insects are much older than birds and mammals, so they have enough time to accumulate species.

    An example is a group of organisms called archaea that have lived on Earth for billions of years, but they are not diverse. No one knows exactly why this is happening. But there are some ideas that can complement the reasons for species diversity--- not just being around longer.

    It accounts for less than 10, and even if there are seemingly large numbers of birds, there are only about 10,000 species, accounting for about 15 of the chordates.

  7. Anonymous users2024-02-06

    This is because mammals and birds appeared relatively late compared to other animals, and the living conditions they require are very harsh.

  8. Anonymous users2024-02-05

    It is directly related to the evolution of species, and as the environment changes, many species will disappear because they have no way to adapt to the environment.

  9. Anonymous users2024-02-04

    It has to do with the timing of their appearance. Fishes were the first vertebrates, and later evolved to appear as birds and mammals.

  10. Anonymous users2024-02-03

    9000 2 3 2 3 = 6000 2 3 = 4000 (species). Among them, the number of reptile species is 9000 2 3 = 6000 (species), so the number of mammalian species is: 6000 2 3 = 4000 (species).

  11. Anonymous users2024-02-02

    What do you think are the dominant animal species on Earth today and why?

    The dominant animal species on the planet today can be classified from different perspectives. In terms of numbers, humans are currently the most abundant and widely distributed animal species on the planet. Human numbers and activities have a profound impact on the Earth's ecosystem, including climate change, species extinction, and more.

    From an ecological point of view, some of the great orange mammals such as lions, tigers, elephants, etc., can also be considered as the dominant animal species, as they play an important role in the ecosystem in which they live, maintaining the ecological balance. In addition, some insects such as ants, bees, etc. can also be considered to be the dominant animal species, as they are also very abundant and distributed in the ecosystem, and play an important role in the stability and function of the ecosystem. In general, the definition of a dominant animal species is multifaceted and needs to be considered from different perspectives.

  12. Anonymous users2024-02-01

    According to zoologists, there are about 1.5 million known species of animals on Earth.

    Animals can be divided into two categories: vertebrates and invertebrates, vertebrates have a vertebral column composed of many vertebrae on the back of the body, and the individual is generally larger; Invertebrates have no vertebral columns, and most of them are small, but they are diverse, accounting for more than 90 of the entire animal population. For example, insects such as flies, mosquitoes, grasshoppers, butterflies, etc., are invertebrates. Vertebrates can be divided into five major groups: fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals.

    Fish are the largest group of vertebrates, with a total of 25,000 to 30,000 species including marine fish and freshwater fish, such as carp and yellow croaker. There are more than 2,000 species of amphibians, such as frogs. There are more than 3,000 species of reptiles, such as snakes, turtles, crocodiles, etc.

    There are 9,000 species of birds, such as pigeons, sparrows. There are more than 4,500 species of mammals, such as horses, cows, lions, tigers, etc. There are still many species of animals in the world that have not yet been discovered.

  13. Anonymous users2024-01-31

    How many species are there in nature, a very specific number should be no. Most of the data is estimated. For example, according to the data of evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr in 1969, there are 1 million species of organisms in the world, and Meyer estimated again in 2003 that the number given is 900-25 million.

    In Zhou Changfa's Principles of Biological Evolution and Taxonomy (published by Science Press, 2009), in 1988, entomologist Wilson estimated that 1.4 million species were known. Of course, these figures are estimates. That is, it is estimated that there are about 25 million species.

    Paleontologist David Rapp writes in Extinction: Is It Bad Genes or Too Bad Luck? wrote:

    There are millions of different species of plants and animals living on Earth, and the number may be around 40 million, and at some point in history the number may be between 5 billion and 50 billion. This discourse further expands the number of species on Earth. In fact, if it is really 5 billion, it is actually difficult to count.

    Definition of species: is the basic unit of taxonomic research. The species can mate within the species, producing offspring.

    It is basically impossible to mate with different species or produce offspring, or the offspring produced after mating are hybrids and can no longer reproduce. Once we understand the definition of species, we can see that in nature, it is already difficult to find relatively large species. But the most abundant species in nature are actually insects.

    There are many species of insects, and more than 1 million species have been discovered. There are many that have not been discovered.

    In addition, there are many species that are not found in the oceans except on land, mainly due to the limited range of human activities. Many craters or deep ocean interiors may have some species that have not yet been discovered. As a result, the number of species on Earth can only be estimated.

  14. Anonymous users2024-01-30

    Insects belong to the class of insects of the phylum Arthropoda of the animal kingdom, which is the most diverse, the largest and the most widely distributed group in the animal kingdom

    It is known that there are more than 1 million species of insects on the earth, accounting for about 2 3 species of the entire animal kingdom, while there are more than 24,600 species of fish, there should be close to 8,000 species of reptiles now, more than 9,000 species of birds and more than 5,000 species of mammals in the world

    Therefore, d

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