Biodiversity is the degree of variation of life. This can refer to genetic variation, species variation, or ecosystem variation within an area, biome, or planet.
Biogenicin: 3.7 billion-year-old metasedimentary rocks of Western Greenland and microbial matfossils, 3.48 billion-year-old, in sandstone discovered in Western Australia showed earliest life.
Rainforests possess a great deal of species diversity.
Terrestrial biodiversity tends to be highest near the equator, which seems to be the result of the warm climate and high primary productively
Marine biodiversity tends to be highest along coasts in the Western Pacific, where sea surface temperature is highest and in mid-latitudinal band in all oceans
Since life began on Earth, five major mass extinctions and several minor events have led to large and sudden drops in biodiversity
The Phanerozoiceon (the last 540 million years) marked a rapid growth in biodiversity via the Cambrian explosion — a period during which the majority of multicellular phyla first appeared
In the Carboniferous, rainforest collapsed leading to a great loss of plant and animal life
Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, occurred 65 million years ago and has often attracted more attention than others because it resulted in the extinction of the dinosaurs
Holocene extinction, the reduction is caused primarily by human impacts, particularly habitat destruction.
The United Nations designated 2011–2020 as the United Nations Decade on Biodiversity.
The term biological diversity was used first by wildlife scientist and conservationist Raymond F. Dasmann in the 1968.
The term biodiversity was coined by W.G. Rosen
"Natural heritage" includes geology and landforms also.
Biologists most often define biodiversity as the "totality of genes,species, and ecosystems of a region"
Wilcox's definition was "Biological diversity is the variety of life forms...at all levels of biological systems (i.e., molecular, organismic, population, speciesand ecosystem)...".
The 1992 United Nations Earth Summit defined "biological diversity" as "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: this includes diversity within species, between species and of ecosystems".
Genetically biodiversity can be defined as the diversity of alleles, genes, and organisms. They study processes such as mutation andvgene transfer that drive evolution
The diversity of all living things (biota) depends on temperature, precipitation, altitude, soils, geography and the presence of other species.!
The spatial distribution of organisms, species, and ecosystems, is the science of biogeography
Diversity consistently measures higher in the tropics and in other localized regions such as the Cape Floristic Region and lower in polar regions generally.
Biodiversity banking, also known as biodiversity trading or conservation banking, is a process by which biodiversity loss can be reduced by creating a framework which allows biodiversity to be reliably measured, and market based solutions applied to improving biodiversity. Biodiversity banking provides a means to place a monetary value on ecosystem services.
Rain forests that have had wet climates for a long time, such as Yasuni National Parkin Ecuador, have particularly high biodiversity.
Terrestrial biodiversity is up to 25 times greater than ocean biodiversity
A biodiversity hotspot is a region with a high level of endemic species that is under threat from humans.
The term hotspot was introduced in 1988 by Dr.Sabina Virk.
Madagascar dry deciduous forests and lowland rainforests, possess a high ratio of endemism.
Cambrian explosion—a period during which nearly every phylum of multicellular organisms first appeared.
While records of life in the sea shows a logistic pattern of growth, life on land (insects, plants and tetrapods) shows an exponentialrise in diversity
Most of the terrestrial diversity is found in tropical forests and in general, land has more species than the ocean; some 8.7 million species may exists on Earth, of which some 2.1 million live in the ocean
"Ecosystem services are the suite of benefits that ecosystems provide to humanity."
In 1997 Robert Costanza and colleagues reported the estimated global value of ecosystem services (not captured in traditional markets) at an average of $33 trillion annually.
Intraspecific diversity includes the genetic variety within a single species. Interspecific diversity refers to the number and types of different species.
The Irish potato blight of 1846 was due to potato blight, caused by a fungus Phytophthora infestans.
Coffee rust attacked coffee plantations inSri Lanka,Brazil, and Central America in 1970.
Monoculture was a contributing factor to several agricultural disasters, including the European wine industry collapse in the late19th century, and the US Southern Corn Leaf Blight epidemic of 1970
About 80 percent of humans' food supply comes from just 20 kinds of plants.
Huumans use at least 40,000 species.
About 80% of the world population depends on medicines from nature.
Natural product exploration is called as "bioprospecting". Inappropriate bioprospecting can increase biodiversity loss.
Cryptic species complex is a group of organisms that are typically very closely related yet their precise classification and relationships cannot be easily determined.
Topical forests have capacity to evapotranspirate vast volumes of water vapor, and serve to keep the planet cool by wearing a sunshade of white reflecting cloud.
Jared Diamond describes an "Evil Quartet" of habitat destruction, overkill, introduced species, and secondary extinctions.
The most threatened ecosystems are found infresh water.
Co-extinction occurs when the extinction or decline in one species accompanies the other, such as in plants and beetles.
Barriers such as large rivers,seas,oceans,mountains and deserts encourage diversity by enabling independent evolution on either side of the barrier, via the process of allopatric speciation.
The term invasive species is applied to species that breach the natural barriers that would normally keep them constrained.
Invasive species are competitive in their new habitats because they are subject to less pathogen disturbance.
Genetic pollution is due to uncontrolled hybridization,introgression and genetic swamping.
Genetic pollution leads to homogenization or replacement of local genomes.
Local species form alpha diversity and invasive species form beta diversity
Overexploitation occurs when a resource is consumed at an unsustainable rate. This occurs on land in the form of overhunting, excessive logging, poor soil conservationin, agriculture and the illegal wildlife trade.
Genetic erosion is a process whereby an already limited gene pool of an endangered speciesof plant or animal diminishes even more when individuals from the surviving population die off without getting a chance to meet and breed with others in their endangered low population.
GM organisms have genetic material altered by genetic engineering procedures such as recombinant DNA technology.
GM crops have become a common source for genetic pollution, not only of wild varieties but also of domesticated varieties derived from classical hybridization.
In Molecular Biology, a collection of DNA from one organism form a Genomic library.
Gene banks are a type of bio-repository which preserve genetic material. In plants, this could be by freezing cuts from the plant, or stocking the seeds. In animals, this is the freezing of sperm and eggs In zoological freezers until further need. With corals, fragments are taken which are stored in water tanks under controlled conditions.
Exotic species that have become pests can be identified taxonomically (e.g.,withDigital Automated Identification SYstem(DAISY), using thebarcode of life).
Reduction of and better targeting of pesticides allows more species to survive in agricultural and urbanized areas.
A habitat corridor, wildlife corridor or green corridor is an area of habitat connecting wildlife populations separated by human activities or structures (such as roads, development, or logging).
