Biodiversity is the degree of variation of life forms within a given species, ec osystem, biome, or an entire planet.

Biodiversity is a measure of the health of ecosystems. Biodiversity is in part a function of climate. In terrestrial habita ts, tropical regions are typically rich whereas polar regions support fewer spec ies. Rapid environmental changes typically cause mass extinctions. One estimate is th at less than 1% of the species that have existed on Earth are extant.[1][verific ation needed] Since life began on Earth, five major mass extinctions and several minor events have led to large and sudden drops in biodiversity. The Phanerozoic eon (the las t 540 million years) marked a rapid growth in biodiversity via the Cambrian expl osion a period during which the majority of multicellular phyla first appeared.[2] The next 400 million years included repeated, massive biodiversity losses class ified as mass extinction events. In the Carboniferous, rainforest collapse led t o a great loss of plant and animal life.[3] The Permian Triassic extinction event, 251 million years ago, was the worst; vertebrate recovery took 30 million years .[4] The most recent, the Cretaceous Paleogene extinction event, occurred 65 milli on years ago and has often attracted more attention than others because it resul ted in the extinction of the dinosaurs.[5] The period since the emergence of humans has displayed an ongoing biodiversity r eduction and an accompanying loss of genetic diversity. Named the Holocene extin ction, the reduction is caused primarily by human impacts, particularly habitat destruction. Conversely, biodiversity impacts human health in a number of ways, both positively and negatively.[6] The United Nations designated 2011-2020 as the United Nations Decade on Biodiver sity.