Biodiversity is one of those terms. Everyone thinks they know what it means, but asked to define it, they often can only do so in the broadest, most general terms. If you don’t know what something is though, there is nothing you can do to protect it. According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, biodiversity [...]
Any realistic, workable definition of biodiversity must take multiple factors into account, because biodiversity covers so much of what we know as life. A good definition of biodiversity must not only take into account that biodiversity covers the air, land and water of Earth and all the animal and plant life thereof. It must take [...]
Marine biodiversity is the variability of life in marine ecosystems. Marine ecosystems include oceans, salt marshes, estuaries, lagoons, coral reefs, shores, and some of the tropical ecosystems (like mangrove forests). They are part of a larger, world ecosystem, and are characterized by having a much greater salinity level than fresh waters. Even though marine ecosystems [...]
Pollution doesn’t only affect human health directly. It also has a tremendous impact on the natural environment and the organisms that inhabit it. This is especially true for endangered and threatened species that rely heavily upon specialized environments or lie high upon the food chain. Whether as a consequence of habitat destruction, direct poisoning that [...]
How to define biodiversity changes with who is doing the defining. Environmentalists might define biodiversity as the total of all plant and animal life (excluding humans) of the planet, and the planet itself the air, water and land that supports animal and plant life. A scientist might add humans to the animal life considered when [...]
While it shouldn’t be, it’s often hard for people to wrap their minds around the concept of biodiversity. Partly this is because the concept of biodiversity is a complex one, and partly it’s because so many agencies have vested interests in people seeing anything that conserves resources as a threat to their lifestyles. The first [...]
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