Brush-in-the-mountains

Brush-in-the-mountains, originally uploaded by tardigrade.

The variety of genetic material within a single species, variety within a community, and variety within an ecosystem is healthy and stable. The differences offer the individuals and the community plasticity to weather disease, environmental alterations and many disasters. If you take a snap shot of a healthy and rarely disturbed system, the heterogeneity is apparent - although, in a wetland the distinctive differences exist in the animals and not the plants. This snap shot was taken of the San Gabriel Mountains on a steep slope where people rarely, if ever venture.