Biodiversity

[1] Biodiversity is Earth's variability life, measured at many levels. E.g. There's genetic variability, species diversity, ecosystem diversity and phylogenetic diversity. Diversity isn't given evenly on Earth. It is greater in the tropics due to warm climate and high primary productivity in regions near the equator. Tropical forest ecosystems cover less than 1/5 of Earth's terrestrial area and contain about 50% of the world's species. There are latitudinal gradients in species diversity for both marine and terrestrial taxa.

[2] Biodiversity encompasses anything from genes, through a species (orangutans, through communities of animals) and then the whole ecological complexes they are part.

[1] An example of a Saskatchewan forest's fungi biodiversity (this photo also has leaf lichens and mosses).

[2] Why does biodiversity matter? The air we breath depends on plants creating oxygen and without bees to pollinate crops, we won't have much to eat.

Biodiversity helps giving and keep fresh water, fertile soils, our medicines, a stable climate and gives us places for recreation.

All species interconnect and often depend on on another. So while fungi help keep forest soils, the soils help plants to grow, insects then carry pollen from plants to plants, animals can eat the plants, and the forest as a whole is a home for animals.

Losing a species in this chain may not seem like much but each loss weakens the network benefiting us.

Back in the 1980s, conservation researchers Paul and Anne Ehrlich said that species are to ecosystems what rivets are to a plane's wing. Losing one might not be a problem, but each loss adds to the likelihood of a disaster.

History

[2] The phrase originating in the 1980s, is a contraction of the words "biological" and "diversity" and more formally defined in the UN's Convention on Biological Diversity signed in 1992 as: "Biological diversity" means the variability among living organisms from all sources including, inter alia, terrestrial, marine and other aquatic ecosystems and the ecological complexes of which they are part, including diversity in species, between species and of ecosystems."

In the 1980s, conservation researchers Paul and Anne Ehrlich said that species are to ecosystems what rivets are to a plane's wing. Losing 1 may not be an issue, but 1 loss adds to the chance of a disaster.

A scientist says the assessment can underline that we now face both a natural and a human emergency.

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