What is biodiversity?

Oh, the beauty of a forest! The pleasure of walking through it, enjoying the smells of the
flowers and the wild; watching the insects flitting about and listening to the birds chirp - how
we all love it and wish to return to it again and again. It is this biodiversity that we have to
protect and take care of in order to enjoy the joy of it all. But what is biodiversity?

Biodiversity is the variety and differences among living organisms from all sources, including
terrestrial, marine, and other aquatic ecosystems and the ecological complexes of which they are a
part. This includes genetic diversity within and between species and of ecosystems. Thus, in essence,
biodiversity represents all life. India is one of the mega biodiversity centres in the world and has two of
the world's 18 biodiversity hotspots located in the Western Ghats and in the Eastern Himalayas
(Myers 1999). The forest cover in these areas is very dense and diverse and of pristine beauty, and
incredible biodiversity.

According to an MoEF Report (1996), the country is estimated to have over 45,000 plant species and
81,000 animal species representing 7% of the worlds flora and 6.5% of its fauna. The 1999 figures
are 49,219 plant species representing 12.5% and 81,251 animal species representing 6.6%.
The sacred groves of India are some of the areas in the country where the richness of biodiversity has
been well preserved. The Thar desert and the Himalayas are two regions rich in biodiversity in India.
There are 89 national parks and 504 wildlife sanctuaries in the country, the Chilika Lake being one of
them. This lake is also an important wetland area. Learn more through map on biodiversity in India.

Over the last century, a great deal of damage has been done to the biodiversity existing on the earth.
Increasing human population, increasing consumption levels, and decreasing efficiency of use of our
resources are some of the causes that have led to overexploitation and manipulation of ecosystems.
Trade in wildlife, such as rhino horn, has led to the extinction of species. Consequences of
biodiversity loss can be great as any disturbance to one species gives rise to imbalance in others. In
this the exotic species have a role to play.

To prevent such loss, the Government of India is setting up biosphere reserves in different parts of
the country. These are multipurpose protected areas to preserve the genetic diversity in different
ecosystems. Till 1999, ten biosphere reserves had been set up, namely Nilgiri, Nandadevi, Nakrek,
Great Nicobar, Gulf of Mannar, Manas, Sunderbans, Similipal, and Dibru Saikhowa. A number of
NGOs are being involved in the programme to create awareness. But legal protection is provided only
to national parks and sanctuaries, which cover about 4.5% of Indias land area.

An Introduction to Biodiversity Theory

The science of biodiversity originates largely from ecology (the study of the
relationship between organisms and their environment) and evolution (the study of
the origin of diversity). From these two fields come its two main goals: to understand
the way the natural systems work and are structured, and to understand how it got
that way.
Why study biodiversity? Although the theory of biodiversity can be studied for its own
sake to gain a better idea of how the world works, it has several important practical
uses, mostly centred on conservation. By understanding the theory, we can better
understand which types of species are most likely to decline under different
circumstances and also know how best to protect those species from extinction. If
diversity is reduced in an area, we can also best prevent further loss and try to
restore the lost diversity if we have a good grasp of what the outcome of different
actions, such as reintroducing lost species, will be. As human activities continue
reduce the biodiversity on the planet, it becomes increasingly important to know what
the effect of our actions will be before we lose any more diversity.
This section consists of four parts. The first introduces the three levels of biodiversity
that are studied, the second looks at how diversity can be gained or lost, the third
examines the composition of diversity in more depth, and the fourth looks at how
biodiversity affects the functioning of ecosystems. Each of these only scrapes the
surface of the research available; the References section of this site lists more
detailed resources.
As one would expect, theory is a complex issue, full of new concepts and terms. This
is the most difficult section of the site, and much of the complexity is unavoidable.

New method for measuring biodiversity

How individual species help structure the biodiversity of tropical rainforests
Leipzig. German and Sri Lankan researchers have developed a new method for
measuring the impacts of species on local biodiversity. It makes it possible to determine
whether a certain species promotes or suppresses species diversity. The new method
extends a procedure familiar to biologists that involves investigating species numbers in
relation to area (the species-area relationship, or SAR), by adding sophisticated
statistical methods so that it can be used to describe the role of individual species in
their impact on biodiversity.

Luftaufnahme des Tropenwaldes auf Barro Colorado Island (BCI) in Panama. Im Foto sind
die gelb blhende Guayacanbume (Tabebuia guayacan) gut zu erkennen.
Source: Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Center for Tropical Forest Science
This individualised method (individual species-area relationship, or ISAR) makes it easier
to identify key species. "We are effectively looking at diversity in the ecosystem through the
glasses of the individual species," says co-author Dr Andreas Huth of the UFZ. This means
that in future it will be easier to understand the role of individual species in ecosystems and to
implement targeted protection measures for key species. In addition, the method can be used
to investigate better the ecological consequences of changes in land use.
The researchers used their new method to evaluate unique data from two tropical rainforests
in Sri Lanka and Panama that are part of a network coordinated by the Center for Tropical
Forest Science (CTFS; www.ctfs.si.edu). Within this network, every single tree with a
trunk thicker than a pencil has been mapped and monitored for years on about a dozen
selected sample plots, some as large as 50 hectares, in tropical rainforests around the globe.
The researchers compared in their study around 40 000 larger trees in the tropical rainforest
on Barro Colorado Island, Panama, with those in the Sinharaja World Heritage Site in Sri
Lanka. To their surprise, more than two third of all species did not leave identifiable
signatures on spatial diversity. The other tree species had an impact on local biodiversity only
in their immediate surroundings, within a radius of up to 20 metres, but not on a large scale.
These findings support the much-debated neutral theory, according to which species
characteristics are unimportant for certain community attributes and play only a subsidiary
role in the stability and diversity of ecosystems. The study reveals that the two tropical forests
lacked any key species structuring species diversity at larger scales, suggesting that
balanced speciesspecies interactions may be a characteristic of these species rich forests.
Dr Thorsten Wiegand says, "Biodiversity researchers have not been able to agree on which
processes permit a high level of species diversity to emerge, and which processes keep these
complicated systems stable".
On the research plot in Panama there were lots of repellent species. By contrast, the one in
Sri Lanka is dominated by attractor species, i.e. species that promote biodiversity. "It is not
yet known why these two tropical rainforests are so different in this regard" say Savitri
Gunatilleke and her husband Nimal, both professors at the University of Peradeniya, "but our
method is a leap forward in an understanding of the complexities of the origin and
maintenance of species richness in tropical forests". After all, the method was being used for
the first time. "We first used the new method in tropical rainforests, but it is universally
applicable and can be used for plants in all ecosystems," says Dr Andreas Huth of the UFZ.
The new method closes a gap between rather more crude descriptions of biodiversity (for the
whole ecosystem) and extremely detailed analyses (interactions between individual
species).In future then, the new method can also be combined with the forest simulation
models already developed at the UFZ.

ADVANTAGES OF BIODIVERSITY
By adopting a different, more positive, and more proactive approach to the challenges that
environmental issues pose, Indian enterprises will greatly benefit in this millennium. The
prevalent attitude today, with some exceptions, is that environmental concerns impose costs
that are best avoided. This is natural since these are costs which can fairly readily be

externalised and imposed on somebody else. Thus, when industrial effluents render river
water unfit for drinking, or decimate fisheries, the costs are paid by people who have to seek
other sources of water for domestic use, or pay more for fish. A rational economic
organisation would, of course, try and, as far as possible, avoid paying these costs. It would
first invest in lobbying against regulations demanding pollution-control. If that does not
work, it will invest in bribing pollution-control authorities to certify that it is obeying
regulations, even if it isn't.
I have more personal experience of such corporate attitudes. A Public Sector Undertaking
(PSU) engaged me as a consultant to look at the environmental impact of its operations. In
my report, I made a number of specific recommendations to avoid adverse environmental
consequences while endorsing other aspects of their programme. I offered to help train their
engineers and contractors to ensure that my suggestions were implemented. Not only did the
PSU ignore this offer, it deleted all my suggestions for safeguards while preparing a
consolidated environmental-impact assessment report.