Description

Biological diversity refers to the variety and variability among living organisms and the ecological complexes in which they occur. Diversity can be defined as the number of different items and their relative frequency. For biological diversity, these items are organized at many levels, ranging from complete ecosystems to the chemical structures that are the molecular basis of heredity. Thus, the term encompasses different ecosystems, species, genes, and their relative abundance. How does diversity vary within ecosystem, species, and genetic levels? For example:

Ecosystem diversity: A landscape interspersed with croplands, grasslands, and woodlands has more diversity than a landscape with most of the woodlands converted to grasslands and croplands

Species diversity: A rangeland with 100 species of annual and perennial grasses and shrubs has more diversity than the same rangeland after heavy grazing has eliminated or greatly reduced the frequency of the perennial grass species.

Genetic diversity: Economically useful crops are developed from wild plants by selecting valuable inheritable characteristics. Thus, many wild ancestor plants contain genes not found in today’s crop plants. An environment that includes both the domestic varieties of a crop (such as corn) and the crop’s wild ancestors has more diversity than an environment with wild ancestors eliminated to make way for domestic crops.

Concerns over the loss of biological diversity to date have been defined almost exclusively in terms of species extinction. Although extinction is perhaps the most dramatic aspect of the problem, it is by no means the whole problem. The consequence is a distorted definition of the problem, which fails to account for many of the interests concerned and may misdirect how concerns should be addressed.