Biodiversity: concept and importance

The definition of biodiversity. The organisatory levels of biodiversity. How many

species are there? The importance of biodiversity.

1. Biological Diversity – what it is?

There is no single standard definition of biodiversity. Different aspects might be stressed

in the various definitions in relation to the different studies and study object. It is useful to
recognize the suggestion of some scientists that different viewpoints about diversity can
be broadly grouped under three headings: those that regard biodiversity as a concept;
those that regard it as a measurable entity; and those that regard it as a social or political
construct.

One of the most often referred definitions of the biological diversity is the one used in the
Convention of Biological Diversity:

Biodiversity is the variability among living organisms from all sources

including, inter alia, terrestrial, marine and other aquatic ecosystems and
the ecological complexes of which they are a part; this includes diversity
within species, between species and of ecosystems.

2. Organizatory levels of biodiversity

Thus, biodiversity is the variety of life: the different plants, animals and micro-organisms,
their genes and the ecosystems of which they are a part. Understanding the "hierarchical
nature of nature" is essential for understanding its functioning and dynamics.

Diversity exists and can be measured at the level of the molecule, gene, individuals,
species, populations, communities, ecosystems, landscapes and regions. Therefore,
biodiversity is generally viewed as three levels consisting of genetic, species, and
ecosystem diversity. In the CBD definition the three levels of diversity are emphasized:

Within species level includes all the biological variation within a species. Genetic
diversity refers to the variety of genetic information in all organisms. Genetic diversity is
the sum of genetic information contained in the genes of individual plants, animals, and
micro-organisms. The gene is the unit of biological information consisting of a certain
amount of DNA. These entities encode information essential for the construction and
regulation of proteins and other molecules that determine the growth and functioning of
the organism. Each species consists of many organisms and virtually no two members of
the same species are genetically identical. Species consist of individuals, and group of
individuals of the same species populating a given area constitute a population. E.g. all
wolves of Finland constitute the wolf population of Finland or all individuals of perch
living in lake Võrtsjärve in Estonia consitute the population of perch in Võrtsjärve.

In general, the within species biological variation consists of genetic variation and
diversity of phenotypes it creates. Genetic variation within a species means the
difference in genotypes of individual specimens of a species. Genotype is the genetic
constitution of an organism. The individuals of a species carry different genes, each
individual representing a unique set of genes. Genotype codes for the phenotype of a
species. Phenotype consists of the observable attributes of an organism like the body size
or weight, shape of leaves etc. The phenotype of an individual plant or animal is
determined to some extent by its genotype, but also influenced by the environment in
which it exists. The interaction between genotype and phenotype has often been described
using a simple equation:
genotype + environment phenotype

A slightly more nuanced version of the equation is:

genotype + environment + random-variation phenotype

Between species level. Species differ from each other. This variation is due to the
difference in the genetical material: its total amount and structure resulting of the changes
in the genetic material over the evolutionary time-scale. Each species is the storehouse of
an immense amount of genetic information in the form of traits, characteristics, etc. The
number of genes ranges from about 1000 in bacteria to more than 400 000 in many
flowering plants.

Ecosystem level. Ecosystem diversity relates to the variety of the communities, ecological
processes and the diversity of habitats occurring within each ecosystem type. The
ecosystems, habitats and communities present difference in species diversity. It is
measured by species richness (number of species in a defined area or region) and species
abundance (sample relative numbers among species). Biodiversity can be also described
by the richness of other taxonomic groups, higher than species, like families or orders (see
below). These are often used if one wants to describe the changes in diversity at the
evolutionary or world scale.

Species diversity is not globally evenly distributed. The richness is concentrated in the
equatorial regions of the earth and decrease as one moves to more polar regions.

3. Classification of species

For understanding the patterns of biodiversity, its creating mechanisms and for making
any comparison of the biodiversity in different systems or ecological conditions it is
important to specify the spatial and temporal scale where we measure the biodiversity. We
can describe the biodiversity of the globe, an ecosystem, a plant community, microhabitat,
square metre etc. Individual organisms are grouped into populations, which in turn form
communities, which form ecosystems. Ecosystems make up the biosphere, which includes
all life on the Earth.

It is clear that to address the whole of biodiversity and its composition, structure and
functions, many different indicators need to be applied at the different levels of
organisation. The indicators or indices of biodiversity will allow us to monitor what is
happening to biodiversity in space and time. To describe distribution of biodiversity we
need to put on it some measurement units like genes, species, higher-taxons (e.g. genus,
family, etc), communities, ecosystems.

Systematics organizes the diverse and huge amount of living organisms of the world.
Systematics is the study of the evolutionary patterns of biological diversity. It includes
the classification and identification of species, the identification and understanding of
their relationships, and the study of the development of species and their relationships
over time. One of the study branches of systematics - taxonomy - refers to either the
classification of things, or the principles underlying the classification. Taxonomy is the
classification of organsims based on similarities in structure or charatceristics. The
classification groups or units are called taxons. For example, if we talk about the
classification of species, a species is the taxon; if the families are classified, a family is the
taxon etc. In the classification of organisms the evolutionary origin and similarities in
structure or characteristics are taken as the main principles of classification. Three highest
hierarchical groups or so-called domains of organisms are distinguished: archea, bacteria,
eucarya (see Figure 1). This distiction is based on the cell structure and presence or
absence of DNA containing nucleus in the cell.

Figure 1. The classification of organisms into three broad gorups, the evolutionary scale
is added.
The genetic relationship between different groups of species resulting in hierarchical
classifications is usually represented by a tree to show the branching evolution of the taxa
(Figure 2).

Figure 2. The tree of life: the simplified illustration of the evolutionary branching of the
organism groups of the world.

In the scientific classification each species is also assigned to higher-order taxonomic

groups.The currently used classification of organisms groups animals to the following
(nested) hierarchy units: Domain, Kingdom, Phylum or Division, Class, Order, Family,
Genus, Species (Table 1).
Table 1. Taxonomic groups of the four species: fruit fly, human, pea, bacteria E.coli.

Rank Fruit fly Human Pea E. coli

Domain Eukarya Eukarya Eukarya Bacteria

Kingdom Animalia Animalia Plantae Bacteria

Phylum
or Arthropoda Chordata Magnoliophyta Proteobacteria
Division

Class Insecta Mammalia Magnoliopsida -Proteobacteria

Order Diptera Primates Fabales Enterobacteriales

Family Drosophilidae Hominidae Fabaceae Enterobacteriaceae

Genus Drosophila Homo Pisum Escherichia

Species D. melanogaster H. sapiens P. sativum E. coli

4. Number of described species. Estimated number of the species. Pattern of species

richness in organism groups.

How many species are there in the world? The real number of species is not known, even
to the nearest order of magnitude. Since now 1.75 million species are identified. However,
the number of species will never be the recorded number but an estimate. According to the
scientific estimation more species inhabit our world, yet remain unidentified: there might
be 13.5 million species altogether. It means that probably only 13% of all species in the
world have been identified so far. Estimates of the number of species on Earth vary
actually from 3-100 million. A more updated figure comes from the World Conservation
Union's 2004 Red List of Threatened Species that says 1.9 million have been described
out of an estimated 5-30 million in existence. See for comparison the following data about
the species numbers of the two sources (Table 2 and 3).

Table 2. The number of described species on Earth according to the data of the
UNEP/ Global Environment Outlook.
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Table 3. The number of described species and the potential number of species
Groombridge (1992).

Taxonomic Group Described Estimated % Described

Vertebrates 45,000 50,000 90
Vascular plants 250,000 300,000 83
Mollusks 70,000 200,000 35
Crustaceans 40,000 150,000 27
Protozoans 40,000 200,000 20
Algae 40,000 200,000 20
Insects 950,000 8,000,000 12
Arachnids 75,000 750,000 10
Fungi 70,000 1,000,000 7
Viruses 5,000 500,000 5
Nematodes 15,000 500,000 3
Bacteria/Archea 4,000 400,000 1
Groombridge, B. 1992. Global Biodiversity: Status of the Earth's Living Resources. London, Chapman & Hall.

There are several groups species of which are yet very poorely recorded like algae, fungi,
viruses. Often it is related to the microscopic size of the certain organism or their habitats
are not easily accessible for studies, e.g. deep-ocean. This reflects also the difficulty to
distinguish species in such groups as bacteria or viruses.

The distribution of biodiversity between organism groups is extremely clumped: many

taxonomic groups have a few species and one or a few groups contain a high proportion of
species (Figure 3). The huge proportion of all species in the world are insects: the highest
richness in species number, but also in higher taxonomic levels like genus and family,
comes from the taxonomic group of animals, arthropods (Phylum Arthropoda) insects
(Class Insecta). The name of arthropods refers to the jointed limbs of the animals. The
 most of species in the insect class belong to the orders Diptera (flies), Hymenoptera
(wasps, ants, bees), Coleoptera (beetles). In addition, 70% of all species in the world are
tropical invertebrates. Chordates (i.e. vertebrates) constitute a small slice of the whole
diagram.

Global Diversity of Organisms (per cent of species in

related group)

Figure 3. The distribution of biodiversity between organism groups.

Biodiversity found on Earth today is the result of 4 billion years of evolution. The number of
species has a dynamic nature (Figure 4). Its changes can be recorded for the evolutionary
(thousands, millions, etc. years) or ecological time (tens and hundreds of years) scale, global,
regional, landscape, community or patch scale.
Figure 4. The change in family diversity of animals. The number of families is plotted
against the geological time.

Most of the species which have settled the earth in the evolutionary time, are extinct
today. On the other hand, there is no evidence for changes in speciation rate over past 3-5
M years (since Pleistocene). For example, biodiversity of Amazonian rainforest has been
deemed to be as high as since Eocene, more than 50 M years ago.

The number of species inhabiting the earth at the present time is estimated to constitute ca
2 - 5% out of all the species which have ever existed. The natural life-time of a species is
estimated to be ca 5-10 million years. However, in the conditions of increasing pressure of
the mankind to the biodiversity we have to deal with extictions caused by humanbeings
via degradation of habitats, overexploitation of species etc. (see Table 4).

Table 4. The number of extinctions during the last 400 years

Taxa Number of extinctions 1600 Percentage of taxon

to present extinct
Mammals 85 2.1
 Birds 113 1.3
Reptiles 21 0.3
Amphibians 2 0.05
Fish 23 0.1
Molluscs 191
Invertebrates 98 0.01
Flowering plants 384 0.2

One can notice the high percentage of extinct species among mammals and birds. These
groups are characterized by both high level of overexploitation (e.g. unsustainable
hunting) and the high proportion of species described in these groups.

See some of the species gone extinct:

Carolina parakeet (Conuropsis carolinensis)
Dodo (Raphus cucullatus)
Great Auk (Pinguinus impennis),
Passenger pigeon (Ectopistes migratorius)
Thylacine (Thylacinus cynocephalus),
Quagga (Equus quagga quagga)

5. What is the importance of biodiversity?

Biodiversity has contributed in many ways to the development of human culture, and, in
turn, human communities have played a major role in shaping the diversity of nature at the
genetic, species, and ecological levels. However, often we pose the question, why is the
biodiversity needed at all, what are the reasons to preserve and promote it?

Biodiversity has multiple functions, use and non-use ones. The use-value of biodiversity
has become the overriding importance, but in addition to that it has other and not less-
ignificant roles as well. The present list of the values and roles of biodiversity is surely
open-ended.

Ecological role

In natural ecosystems abiotic and biotic environment are interrelated with each other in a
complex way. Ecosystem works as a net of connections from one living thing to many
other living and non-living things. Each species gives its contribution to the functioning
and structure of an ecosystem, cycle of energy and matter, has its own role in the
ecosystem and shaping of the environment (e.g. producing and/or decomposing of organic
matter, pollination, etc.). It is very difficult, sometimes even impossible, to predict how
the disappearance of one or more species can change the whole ecosystem.

One of the ways how different organisms are related with and depend on each other in the
ecosystem are the food chains which cycles of energy and matter (see Figure 5). Some
species or organism-groups create habitats for other species. For example, the standing or
decaying trunks create various (micro) habitats for great number of insects, bryophytes,
lichens.
Figure 5. An example of interaction between species: a food web in a lake ecosystem.

Changes in either abiotic or biotic environment can mutually intiate changes. Research
suggests that a more diverse ecosystem is better able to withstand environmental stress.
The loss of one or more certain species might decrease the ability of the system to
maintain itself or to recover from damage or disturbance. Such topic has been developed
rather recently and finds a hot debate among ecologists.

Economic role
Biodiversity serves humankind as main resource for daily life. Food, medicine, industry,
entertainment and other sectors relay on use of biodiversity. The biggest industries
relaying on the biodiversity use are timber and building industry, pharmacy, food product
industry. The market has assigned the economic value for the biodiversity, specifically for
the natural products and services the biodiversity offers. However, other products and
services of biodiversity have no direct market value yet, and their economic significance
depends on societies recognising their worth. It is important to notice that not all use-
values of species are discovered yet. The chance to discover these and to enjoy the natural
and healthy environment must not be taken away from the next generations.
Biodiversity may hold species or genes that can help insure against future risk and
uncertainty; for example, the continued availability of genetic resources may be needed to
combat new diseases or to ensure adaptability to change climate conditions. Loosing of
species diminishes also the possibilities to discover any useful properties of the species
from the human point of view.

David Simberloff, an outstanding American biologist has been arguing that „/…/ it is
difficult to know exactly how much the current extinction spasm is costing us, especially
because some of the benefits of these species would have been realized in the future. Just
pharmaceuticals derived from plants are now worth about $40 billion per year, and fewer
than 1 in 100 plants has been surveyed for phytochemicals that might turn out to be
medically useful. Just one plant that stops cancer, like the rosy periwinkle, can be worth
over $200 million per year. It is the treatment of choice for Hodgkins’ disease and some
lymphomas. About 1 in 5 people in the U.S. and the rest of the world eventually contract
some cancer, and for many of them there are still no known cures.“

In the time of biotechnology, single gene can „cost“ a lot. It has become possible for the
first time to take a gene from one species and put it into another. One can even put a plant
gene in an animal or vice-versa. This leads to staggering possibilities. It may even be
possible to replace a defective gene in humans with a gene from another species, for
example. It is already possible to take a gene creating a useful product from a slow-
growing species and put it into a fast-growing species to get much more of the product.
For example, human interferon is already being produced by trees, and several useful
genes from plants have been put in bacteria that make their products much, much faster.

But firstly, these genes need to be preserved!

Biodiversity comprises genetic diversity (and associated information) used by people to

create new crops or animal varieties or pharmaceutical derivatives. It places a critical role
in enhancing agricultural productivity and is a key source of medicinal and cosmetic
products. It also enables natural selection to take place.

To assure the ongoing existence of biodiversity and ecological sustainability of

ecosystems, the exploitation of the natural resources must not exceed the threshold level
beyond which the nature can`t recover itself. Sustainable use entails the introduction and
application of methods and processes for the utilization of biodiversity to prevent its long
term decline, thereby maintaining its potential to meet current and future human needs.
The principles of the sustainable use should be elaborated and followed both at the
national and global scale. It needs the multi-sectoral cooperation and compromises at the
national level.
Indirect use-value
Biodiversity offers also indirect use values such as enjoyed for instance by nature and eco-
tourists, for recreation and other use values which do not involve harvesting or destroying
the resource.

Ethical value
Biodiversity has an ethical role if humans consider that other species have an intrinsic
right to exist. Ecophilosophies assert that recognizing of this intrinsic right makes it
morally wrong to voluntarily cause extinction. The level of biodiversity is a good
indicator of the state of our relationships with other living species. Biodiversity is also part
of many cultures' spiritual heritage.

Intrinsic or existence value, non-use value

The intrinsic value of biodiversity considers the viewpoint that the evaluation of world
takes place purely in the mind of humans. No values exist in nature but in the brain of
humans. So, such mode to evaluate the surrounding characterizes humans psyche but it
does not mean that such kind of values of different objects really exist. And vice versa,
values may exist independently from valuation of humans.

Scientific value
Biodiversity is important because each species can give scientists some clue as how life
evolved and will continue to evolve on Earth. In addition, biodiversity helps scientists
understand how life functions and the role of each species in sustaining ecosystems.
Scientists argue that much remains to be learned about many species and ecosystems
around the world and that the loss of these species would foreclose that opportunity.

Related pages:
1) To clone or not to clone?
2) The Committee on Recently Extinct Organisms
3) Endangered, at risk and extinct species of the world
4) IUCN the Redlist of threatened species

Further reading:

Gaston, K.J. & Spicer, J.I. (1998). Biodiversity: an Introduction. Blackwell Science,
Oxford.

Gaston, K.J. (1996). What is biodiversity? In K.J. Gaston (Ed.), Biodiversity: a biology of
numbers and difference. (pp. 1-9). Oxford, U.K.: Blackwell Science Ltd.

Convention on Biological Diversity