Biological diversity - or biodiversity - is a term we use to describe the variety of life on Earth. It refers to the wide variety of ecosystems and living organisms: animals, plants, their habitats and their genes.
Biodiversity is the foundation of life on Earth. It is crucial for the functioning of ecosystems which provide us with products and services without which we couldn’t live. Oxygen, food, fresh water, fertile soil, medicines, shelter, protection from storms and floods, stable climate and recreation - all have their source in nature and healthy ecosystems. But biodiversity gives us much more than this. We depend on it for our security and health; it strongly affects our social relations and gives us freedom and choice.
Biodiversity is extremely complex, dynamic and varied like no other feature of the Earth. Its innumerable plants, animals and microbes physically and chemically unite the atmosphere (the mixture of gases around the Earth), geosphere (the solid part of the Earth), and hydrosphere (the Earth's water, ice and water vapour) into one environmental system which makes it possible for millions of species, including people, to exist.
At the same time, no other feature of the Earth has been so dramatically influenced by man’s activities. By changing biodiversity, we strongly affect human well-being and the well-being of every other living creature.
The variety of life on Earth, its biological diversity is commonly referred to as biodiversity. The number of species of plants, animals, and microorganisms, the enormous diversity of genes in these species, the different ecosystems on the planet, such as deserts, rainforests and coral reefs are all part of a biologically diverse Earth. Appropriate conservation and sustainable development strategies attempt to recognize this as being integral to any approach. Almost all cultures have in some way or form recognized the importance that nature, and its biological diversity has had upon them and the need to maintain it. Yet, power, greed and politics have affected the precarious balance.
Last updated Wednesday, April 06, 2011.
Why is Biodiversity important? Does it really matter if there aren’t so many species?

Biodiversity boosts ecosystem productivity where each species, no matter how small, all have an important role to play.
For example, a larger number of plant species means a greater variety of crops; greater species diversity ensures natural sustainability for all life forms; and healthy ecosystems can better withstand and recover from a variety of disasters. And so, while we dominate this planet, we still need to preserve the diversity in wildlife.
Loss Of Biodiversity And Extinctions
It has long been feared that human activity is causing massive extinctions. Despite increased efforts at conservation, it has not been enough and biodiversity losses continue. The costs associated with deteriorating or vanishing ecosystems will be high. However, sustainable development and consumption would help avert ecological problems.

Read “Loss of Biodiversity and Extinctions” to learn more.

Nature And Animal Conservation

Preserving species and their habitats is important for ecosystems to self-sustain themselves.

Yet, the pressures to destroy habitat for logging, illegal hunting, and other challenges are making conservation a struggle.
Read “Nature and Animal Conservation” to learn more.

Climate Change Affects Biodiversity

Rapid global warming can affect an ecosystems chances to adapt naturally.

The Arctic is very sensitive to climate change and already seeing lots of changes. Ocean biodiversity is already being affected as are other parts of the ecosystem.
Read “Climate Change Affects Biodiversity” to learn more.

Coral Reefs

One type of ecosystem that perhaps is neglected more than any other is perhaps also the richest in biodiversity—the coral reefs.

Coral reefs are useful to the environment and to people in a number of ways. However, all around the world, much of the world’s marine biodiversity face threats from human and activities as well as natural. It is feared that very soon, many reefs could die off.
Read “Coral Reefs” to learn more.

Addressing Biodiversity Loss

At the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development (the Earth Summit), the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) was born. 192 countries, plus the EU, are now Parties to that convention. In April 2002, the Parties to the Convention committed to significantly reduce the loss of biodiversity loss by 2010.

Perhaps predictably, that did not happen. Despite numerous successful conservations measures supporting biodiversity, the 2010 biodiversity target has not been met at the global level. This page provides an overview on how the attempts to prevent biodiversity loss is progressing.
Read “Addressing Biodiversity Loss” to learn more.

Biosafety Protocol 1999

The February 1999 Biodiversity Protocol meeting in Colombia broke down because USA, not even a signatory to the Convention on Biological Diversity, to which the protocol is meant to be part of, and five other countries of the "Miami Group" felt that their business interests were threatened. The safety concerns were unfortunately overridden by trade concerns. Some technological advances, especially in genetically engineered food, have been very fast paced and products are being pushed into the market place without having been proven safe. All over the world, concerned citizens and governments have been trying to take precautionary measures. However, 1999 was not a successful year in that respect.
Read “Biosafety Protocol 1999” to learn more.

Biosafety Protocol 2000

A Biosafety Protocol meeting was hosted in Montreal, Canada January 24 to January 28. Compared to the fiasco of the previous year, this time, there had been a somewhat successful treaty to regulate the international transport and release of genetically modified organisms to protect natural biological diversity. However, there were a number of important and serious weaknesses too.
Read “Biosafety Protocol 2000” to learn more.

Climate Change And Global Warming

The climate is changing. The earth is warming up, and there is now overwhelming scientific consensus that it is happening, and human-induced. With global warming on the increase and species and their habitats on the decrease, chances for ecosystems to adapt naturally are diminishing. Many are agreed that climate change may be one of the greatest threats facing the planet. Recent years show increasing temperatures in various regions, and/or increasing extremities in weather patterns.

This section explores some of the effects of climate change. It also attempts to provide insights into what governments, companies, international institutions, and other organizations are attempting to do about this issue, as well as the challenges they face. Some of the major conferences in recent years are also discussed.
Read “Climate Change and Global Warming” to learn more.

Environmental Issues

Environmental issues are also a major global issue. Humans depend on a sustainable and healthy environment, and yet we have damaged the environment in numerous ways. This section introduces other issues including biodiversity, climate change, animal and nature conservation, population, genetically modified food, sustainable development, and more.

Read “Environmental Issues” to learn more.

The magnitude of biodiversity

An Australian rain forest Creek.
An Australian rain forest Creek.
Biodiversity is most frequently quantified as the number of species. Estimates of the number of species currently living on Earth range widely, largely because most living species are microorganisms and tinyinvertebrates, but most estimates fall between 5 million and 30 million species. Roughly 1.75 million species have been formally described and given official names. Insects comprise over half of the described species, and three fourths of known faunal species. The number of undescribed species is undoubtedly much higher, however. Particularly in inaccessible environments, and for inconspicuous groups of organisms, collecting expeditions routinely discover many undescribed species. Estimates of the total numbers of species on Earth have been derived variously by extrapolating from the ratios of described to previously unknown species in quantitative samples, from the judgment of experts in particular taxonomic groups, and from patterns in the description of new species through time. For most groups of organisms other than vertebrates, such estimates are little more than educated guesses, explaining the wide range in estimates of global species diversity. Since insects are essentially absent from the sea, the species diversity of the oceans is generally considerably lower than terrestrial ones.
Species can be grouped on the basis of shared characteristics into hierarchical groups, or taxa, reflecting their shared evolutionary history. At the highest level of classification (or deepest branches in the evolutionarytree of life) organisms are divided into three Domains: 1) the Bacteria, which are microorganisms lacking a cellular nucleus or other membrane-bound organelles; 2) the relatively recently discovered Archaea, microorganisms of primarily extreme environments such as hot springs, which are superficially similar to Bacteria but fundamentally different at biochemical and genetic levels; and 3) the Eukarya, which include all other organisms based on nucleated cells. The Eukarya includes the four "kingdoms", the protists, animals, plants, and fungi. Each of the eukaryotic kingdoms in turn is divided into a number of phyla. At this higher taxonomic level, the oceans are far more diverse than those on land, likely reflecting the marine origins of life on Earth. Nearly half the phyla of animals occur only in the sea (e.g., the sea stars and other echinoderms), whereas only one (the obscure Onychophora, or velvet worms) is restricted to land.

Measurement of biodiversity

Distribution of biodiversity

Species diversity varies systematically across the globe with latitude, longitude, and altitude (or its equivalent, depth, in the oceans). The trend toward higher species diversity in the tropics is perhaps the most conspicuous biogeographic pattern in nature, and is sufficiently general to have been considered a "rule". In most marine groups, diversity is maximal in the Indo-West Pacific.
Superimposed on these large-scale global patterns are local hot spots of diversity generated by geographical features, by quirks of geologic history, or by mixing of biotas from different biogeographic provinces. These biodiversity hot spots have become important (and often controversial) foci for conservation efforts.

Ecological controls on biodiversity

A central question in explaining these patterns of diversity is determining the relative importance of long-term evolutionaryprocesses -- the balance between origin and extinction of species -- and local ecological processes of species interactions.
The general similarity among diversity patterns of different taxa with latitude and region suggests that prehistorically these patterns have been controlled primarily by factors operating over large spatial and temporal scales. Ultimately, the number of species in a region is set by a balance between origin through speciation, loss through extinction, and migration of species among regions, all of which operate over long (geologic) time scales.
Conversely, on local spatial scales and over ecological time scales on the order of a few generations of organisms, a wealth of evidence shows that diversity often varies systematically with habitat area, habitat heterogeneity, disturbance, and availability ofenergy (i.e., productivity) and other resources, notably water in terrestrial ecosystems.

Human disturbance factors

For the most recent 10,000 years man has been the greatest factor affecting biodiversity, with adverse impacts occurring at an accelerating pace since approximately the Industrial Revolution. Human intervention in ecosystem function have been expressed through habitat destruction, habitat fragmentation, overexploitation, and pollution. In some locations such as Easter Island andHawaii the majority of macroscopic species that existed as recently as the mid-Holocene are now extirpated.
Biodiversity is the variability of all living organisms -- including animal and plant species -- of the genes of all these organisms, and of the terrestrial, aquatic and marine ecosystems of which they are part.
Biodiversity makes up the structure of the ecosystems and habitats that support essential living resources, including wildlife, fisheries and forests. It helps provide for basic human needs such as food, shelter, and medicine. It composes ecosystems that maintain oxygen in the air, enrich the soil, purify the water, protect against flood and storm damage and regulate climate. Biodiversity also has recreational, cultural, spiritual and aesthetic values.
Society's growing consumption of resources and increasing populations have led to a rapid loss of biodiversity, eroding the capacity of earth's natural systems to provide essential goods and services on which human communities depend.  Human activities have raised the rate of extinction to 1,000 times its usual rate.  If this continues, Earth will experience the sixth great wave of extinctions in billions of years of history.  Already, an estimated two of every three bird species are in decline worldwide, one in every eight plant species is endangered or threatened, and one-quarter of mammals, one-quarter of amphibians and one-fifth of reptiles are endangered or vulnerable. 
Also in crisis are forests and fisheries, which are essential biological resources and integral parts of the earth's living ecosystems. The World Resources Institute estimates that only one-fifth of the earth’s original forest cover survives unfragmented, yet deforestation continues, with 180 million hectares in developing countries deforested between 1980 and 1995.  Forests are home to 50-90% of terrestrial species, provide ecosystem services such as carbon storage and flood prevention, and are critical resources for many linguistically and culturally diverse societies and millions of indigenous people. 
Overfishing, destructive fishing techniques and other human activities have also severely jeopardized the health of many of the world’s fish stocks along with associated marine species and ecosystems.  The Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN estimates that nearly two-thirds of ocean fisheries are exploited at our beyond capacity.  Over one billion people, mostly in developing countries, depend on fish as their primary source of animal protein.