BIO-DIVERSITY

The variety of life on Earth, its biological diversity is commonly referred to as biodiversity.
Convention on Biological Diversity defines biodiversity 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 a part; this includes diversity within species,
between species, and ofecosystems."
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.
Thus, biodiversity includes genetic variation within species, the variety of species in an area, and
the variety of habitat types within a landscape. Perhaps inevitably, such an all-encompassing
definition, together with the strong emotive power of the concept, has led to somewhat cavalier
use of the term biodiversity, in extreme cases to refer to life or biology itself. But biodiversity
properly refers to the variety of living organisms.
Biological diversity is of fundamental importance to the functioning of all natural and humanengineered ecosystems, and by extension to the ecosystem services that nature provides free of
charge to human society. Living organisms play central roles in the cycles of major elements
(carbon, nitrogen, and so on) and water in the environment, and diversity specifically is
important in that these cycles require numerous interacting species.
CLIMATE CHANGE
The link between climate change and biodiversity has long been established. Although throughout
Earths history the climate has always changed with ecosystems and species coming and
going, rapid climate change affects ecosystems and species ability to adapt and so biodiversity
loss increases.

GADDAR LINE :

At least 40 per cent of the worlds economy and 80 per cent of the needs of the poor are derived
from biological resources. In addition, the richer the diversity of life, the greater the opportunity
for medical discoveries, economic development, and adaptive responses to such new challenges
as climate change.

MAGNITUDE :
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 thanterrestrial ones.

Harmanjot Singh Walia