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Biodiversity

Photo: field of flowers

Biodiversity encompasses all the variety of living things - plants, animals and microbes - and all the places where they're found. It is the diversity of life, from genes to whole ecosystems.

Biodiversity is essential for our survival. It provides basic necessities - food, fuel, clean air and water - as well as benefits such as medicine, breakdown of waste and crop pollination. But it also brings us things we don't want - superbugs that survive conventional antibiotics, invasive plants and animals, and potential new killers like bird flu.

Scientists believe that the sheer diversity of life is richer now than it has been in any other period in Earth's history. Estimates range from 10-100 million species living on this planet right now. We have only named 1·75 million different species, and scientists know some species have been described more than once, so the actual number of species is lower. We also know the world is losing huge numbers of plant and animal species, and that this loss is accelerating, perhaps even approaching previous mass extinction rates.

Genes
All living cells contain DNA - deoxyribonucleic acid - the organism's blueprint. The DNA molecule carries instructions for making all the structures and materials an organism needs to function. Genes are segments of DNA that regulate biological activity. They contain the instructions for producing proteins, which make up the structure of cells and direct their activities. Genes determine the inherited characteristics that distinguish one individual from another. Each human has an estimated 90,000 genes.

Ecosystems
A community of plants, animals, and micro-organisms that interact with each other and with the physical environment. Rainforests, deserts, coral reefs, grasslands, soils, even rotting logs are all examples of ecosystems, as is planet Earth. NERC scientists aim to increase understanding of ecosystems and the functions of the organisms within them.

The information presented here comes from a wide range of published international sources, and includes work by scientists supported by the Natural Environment Research Council.