Definition
What is biodiversity?
Biodiversity, short for biological diversity, is the variety of living things, measured at several levels. Genetic diversity is the variation in genes within a species, which gives populations the raw material to adapt. Species diversity, the most common measure, counts how many species live in an area and how abundant each one is. Ecosystem diversity refers to the range of habitats and communities, such as forests, grasslands, wetlands and reefs.
Biodiversity is far from evenly spread. In almost every group of organisms, the number of species rises toward the equator, and certain biodiversity hotspots hold large numbers of species found nowhere else. Most species have not yet been described: scientists have named about 1.5 million eukaryotes, less than a fifth of the number thought to exist, and estimates for bacteria and other microbes are largely guesswork.
People depend on biodiversity for food, clean water, pollination, fertile soil and medicines; the painkiller aspirin, for instance, was developed from a compound found in willow bark. Diverse communities also tend to withstand disease and other disturbances better. Habitat destruction, invasive species, overharvesting, pollution and climate change are now driving extinctions far faster than the natural background rate.
Word parts
Where does the word “biodiversity” come from?
- bio-
- lifeGreek bios
- divers-
- turned different ways, variedLatin diversus
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Terms that go with it
- EcosystemAn ecosystem is a community of living organisms together with the nonliving environment they interact with, linked by energy flow and nutrient cycling.
- ExtinctionExtinction is the permanent loss of a species, which happens when the last living individual of that species dies.
- Mass extinctionA mass extinction is an event in which a large share of Earth's species, often three-quarters or more, dies out in a geologically short time.
- Keystone speciesA keystone species is one whose effect on its ecosystem is far larger than its numbers suggest, so that removing it reshapes the whole community.
- SpeciationSpeciation is the evolutionary process in which one ancestral species splits into two or more species whose members can no longer interbreed.
- Coral bleachingCoral bleaching is the paling of stressed corals as they lose the tiny symbiotic algae inside their tissue, most often because the water is too warm.
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Checked against
Written for biofideX in plain words, after checking these references:
- OpenStax Biology 2e, 47.1 The Biodiversity Crisis
- National Geographic Education: Biodiversity
- American Heritage Dictionary: diverse
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