Each and every species on Earth contributes to the balance of the ecosystem.
If you observe carefully, people staying in various places have different habits, lifestyle and choices. Similar is with animals and birds, plants and vegetables, they vary with location on the earth. You can imagine the versatility of living species we have on earth!
This versatility was termed as “Biodiversity” by ‘National Forum on Biodiversity for the first time in 1985’. Earth is wealthy in terms of biological variation. Biodiversity can also be defined as the variety and richness of living species on the Earth. The biodiversity depends on the terrestrial weather conditions. Due to the warm climate and primary productivity, biodiversity is greater near the equator, which includes all the tropical and equatorial countries.
Biodiversity can be divided into three types: genetic diversity, species diversity, and ecosystem diversity.
Genetic biodiversity is due to the uniqueness of genes. It is like dogs are common all around the world, but they differ in their genetic makeup similar is with us, humans. It is developed and adopted for the survival of the species in particular regions on the earth. Species biodiversity measures individual organism in particular species and their distribution over a period of time. This is helpful to understand the interconnection between species. It deals with the species richness in the particular area. This can be observed in the evolution of every species, including us, with generations. Ecosystem diversity contains entire diversity on the earth, from the smallest species such as amoeba to the biggest ones like elephants; and plants, forests depending on the surroundings.
Biodiversity science is a branch where people study biodiversity, its impact, history and how and why it changes over time. Due to climatic change, pollution, deforestation, and industrialisation; humans have drastically damaged the ecosystem on the earth. This highly affects various species, such as we see the polar bear in the above image. Rapid climate change makes it difficult to grasp, adjust and adopt for the survival of every living species on the planet. Thus, it is also declining the quality of their maintenance and future generations leading to the end of their existence.
Each and every species on Earth contributes to the balance of the ecosystem. It is our duty to conserve and help them evolve by maintaining our environment for their existence.
Edited by: Anomitra Dey
Reference:
1. https://enviroliteracy.org/ecosystems/biodiversity/
2. https://www.nature.com/subjects/biodiversity
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biodiversity
