What is biodiversity? Why is it important?
Biodiversity, also called “biological diversity” or “ecological diversity”, refers to the variety of life on earth. Biodiversity is often looked at on three levels – the ecosystem level, the species level, and the genetic level. An ecosystem includes all the plants and animals in an area, together with their physical-chemical environment. Examples of ecosystems include prairies, forests, and wetlands. In each ecosystem there are populations of individual species, such as purple coneflowers. These individual species are only found in specific types of ecosystems. At a genetic level, the gene pool found within groups of purple coneflowers in different geographic regions vary slightly because they have adapted to the different environmental conditions. In order to be healthy and sustainable, an ecosystem needs to be filled with a wide array of plants and animals indigenous to the area. In addition to providing food and shelter to birds and animals, a healthy ecosystem provides many servic
