What is Biodiversity?

What does the word biodiversity bring to mind?

Perhaps you picture a rainforest, a coral reef, or the entire Earth seen from space. But biodiversity can also be found in a fragment of deciduous forest that still has a dawn chorus of birdsong or in a restored wetland to which native species are being reintroduced or a scoop of soil from a neighborhood park.

Biodiversity (or biological diversity) is an expression of the variety of life on our planet as well as measure of the global ecosystem’s health and vitality. When ecologists and resource managers speak of biodiversity, they use it to mean the following things:

• Species variety: Biodiversity is reflected in the number of different species present in a region and in their interactions—a vibrant, lively web of life
• Genetic variation: Genetic diversity within a species is important to allow that species to adapt quickly to changes in food supply or to respond to the threat of a new pathogen
• Ecosystem variety: The diversity of life on earth is maintained by the health and diversity of its interconnected habitats and biomes, from ponds to oceans, dunes to mountains, wetlands to forests to prairies.

Resources

Explore Biodiversity on EOL

E. O. Wilson’s classic book, The Diversity of Life