Biodiversity
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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"The current rate of global diversity loss is estimated to be 100 to 1000 times higher than the (naturally occurring) background extinction rate and expected to still grow in the upcoming years." --Sholem Stein |
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Biodiversity is the degree of variation of life forms within a given species, ecosystem, biome, or an entire planet. Biodiversity is a measure of the health of ecosystems. Biodiversity is in part a function of climate. In terrestrial habitats, tropical regions are typically rich whereas polar regions support fewer species.
Rapid environmental changes typically cause mass extinctions. One estimate is that less than 1% of the species that have existed on Earth are extant.
The period since the emergence of humans has displayed an ongoing biodiversity reduction and an accompanying loss of genetic diversity. Named the Holocene extinction, the reduction is caused primarily by human impacts, particularly habitat destruction.
See also
- Biodiversity loss
- Defaunation
- Deforestation and climate change
- Ecological indicator
- Index of biodiversity articles
- International Day for Biological Diversity
- Megadiverse countries
- World Scientists' Warning to Humanity
- Zero-Force Evolutionary Law
