What is a Keystone Species: Definition, Types, Characteristics, Importance, Examples, and Ecological Role

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 Introduction:      A keystone species is an organism that plays a disproportionately large role in maintaining the structure, stability, and functioning of an ecosystem. Another definition of keystone species is a species whose impact on its ecosystem is disproportionately large relative to its abundance or biomass. They are named after the keystone in a stone arch, the central wedge-shaped stone that holds the entire arch together. In 1969 zoologist Robert T. Paine used this architectural term as a metaphor to describe the critical role of these species. Although keystone species are often low in abundance, their removal can cause major changes throughout an ecosystem. Not all dominant or abundant species are keystone species. A keystone species is identified by the magnitude of its ecological impact rather than by its population size. Some keystone species are abundant, while others are relatively rare. Keystone in a stone arch History of keystone species concept...
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30 Fascinating Science Facts about Space, Biology, and Physics

 Interesting facts

Human Body Marvel:

  • ⚖️ Brain Weight & Energy: The human brain's weight is up to 2% of the total body. But it uses 20% of the body's energy and oxygen.
  • ⚡ Body Electricity: Many organs, including the brain, heart, and muscles, generate weak electrical signals due to the movement of charged ions.
  • ❤️ Self-Powered Heart: The heart has its own electrical conduction system. So, if it removed from the body, it continues to pump (in the presence of oxygen). 
  • ⚡ Brain's power: The human brain produces 12-25 watts of electricity while awake. It is enough to power a low-voltage bulb.
  • 🧼 Ancient Hygiene: Urine was used for cleaning purposes (face wash, washing cloth and cleaning teeth) in past Roman times. Urine contains ammonia, which is a strong natural cleaning agent.
  • 🧫 Bacterial Majority: Your body has a larger number of bacterial cells than your own body cells.
  • 🧪 Natural Chemicals: The human body generates toxic chemicals; if they are in high concentrations it become poison.
  • Shared genes and DNA: Humans share approximately 60% of their genes with bananas. While 98 % of human DNA is similar to Chimpanzee and bonobos. 
  • 🧬 Uncoiled DNA: If human DNA uncoild, it will be long to double of distance between Earth and Pluto.
  • 🧱 The Second Brain: The human gut has about 100 million neurons. It manages digestion independently from the brain.
  • 🧪 Stomach Acid: The human stomach produces hydrochloric acid, which can dissolve some metals. 

Microscopic and Natural World:

  • 📣 Plant Alarms: To warn about danger, plants can communicate through chemical signals.
  • Oldest organism: Archaebacteria are supposed to be among the oldest forms of life on Earth.
  • 🌱 Teeming Soil: One teaspoon of healthy soil has more microorganisms than people in this world.
  • 🧫 The Monera Kingdom: Kingdom Monera contains only prokaryotic organisms. All other four kingdoms of organisms are eukaryotes. This classification belongs to the traditional five-kingdom system.
  • ⚙️ Essential Enzymes: Enzymes are natural catalysts that speed up a chemical reaction. Without enzymes, life would become impossible.

Fascinating Animal Kingdom:

  • 🌌 Space-Surviving Tardigrades: Tardigrade is animal that can survive in space and also tolerate with extremely hard conditions.
  • 🧽 Ancient Glass Sponges: Glass sponges are among the longest-living animals. Certain species can live for an estimated 10,000 to 15,000 years.
  • 🐙 Blue Blood & 3 Hearts: Octopuses have three hearts and blue blood because their blood contains hemocyanin, a copper-based oxygen-carrying protein instead of iron-based hemoglobin.  
  • 🦈 Age of Sharks: Sharks are very old organisms on Earth. They lived around 400 million years ago. On the contrary, trees appeared 350 million years ago.
  • 🐛 Leech Anatomy: The leech's body is internally divided into 32 segments, and each segment has its own ganglion. It is a ganglion, a segment of the nervous system rather than an independent brain.
  • 🐘 Brain Size Leaders: The weight of an African elephant's brain is 5 kg, which is the heaviest brain among terrestrial animals. Among marine animals, the sperm whale has a brain weight of 9 kg.
  • 🪼 Immortal Jellyfish: Immortal jellyfish is not invincible but cannot die due to age. It can restart its life cycle again and again.

Space and Astronomy:

  • 🌌 The Unseen Universe: Dark matter and dark energy make up to 27% and 68% of the total universe, respectively. While we can see makes up only 5%.
  • 🍓 Space Flavours: Scientists discovered a pack of dust with ethyl formate. Ethyle formate is a colourless liquid with a pleasant odor which give raspberry flavour.
  • 🌊 Subsurface Oceans: There is a great ocean discovered between the icy crust and hard core of Enceladus (a moon of Saturn). Oceans are also discovered on Titan and Mimas.
  • 🔊 The Sun's Volume: If sound can travel through a vauume. On Earth, the Sun's nuclear fusion sound would be 100 decibels, hypothetically.
  • 🏋️ Neutron Star Density: A single tablespoon of neutron star has a weight of 1 to 6 billion tons on Earth.

Quantum Mechanics:

  • ⚛️ Elementary Particles: The atom is not the smallest particle of matter. According to the Standard Model of particle physics, quarks and electrons are considered elementary particles of all matter that we see.
  • 📐 Hidden Dimensions: There are 10 dimensions according to string theory. One dimension is time, three of macro space (length, height, and width), and six are hidden spatial dimensions. M-theory extends this to 11 by adding one more hidden dimension.
  • 🐱 Wave-Particle Duality: Subatomic particles like electrons act as both particle and wave at the same time. This is wave-particle duality. This concept is often illustrated by Schrödinger's cat thought experiment, in which a cat is described as being both alive and dead until observed. 

Chemistry:

  • 🧊 Triple Point: Under specific pressure and temperature, water can freeze and boil simultaneously at its triple point.
  • 💧 Trillions of Atoms: Atoms are so small that one drop of water contains 5 sextillion of atoms.
  • 💨 Sublimation: Pure carbon dioxide can can convert from solid dry ice state into gas without a liquid phase under standard pressure and room temperature. It can exist in a liquid form under high pressure.
  • 🧊 Superfluid Helium: When liquid helium is cooled to 2.17 K, it loses all internal friction and becomes superfluid with zero viscosity.
  • 💎 Diamond Rain: Due to extreme pressure, some planets like Uranus and Neptune possess diamond rain that falls towards the core. 

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