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BIODIVERSITY "Biodiversity" is most commonly used to replace the more clearly defined and long established terms, species

diversity and species richness. Biologists most often define biodiversity as the "totality [12][13] of genes, species, and ecosystems of a region". An advantage of this definition is that it seems to describe most circumstances and presents a unified view of the traditional three levels at which biological variety has been identified: species diversity ecosystem diversity genetic diversity

In 2003 Professor Anthony Campbell at Cardiff University, UK and the Darwin [14] Centre, Pembrokeshire, defined a fourth level: Molecular Diversity. This multilevel construct is consistent with Dasmann and Lovejoy. An explicit definition consistent with this interpretation was first given in a paper by Bruce A. Wilcox commissioned by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) for the 1982 World National [15] Parks Conference. Wilcox's definition was "Biological diversity is the variety of life forms...at all levels of biological systems (i.e., molecular, organismic, population, species and ecosystem)...". The 1992 United Nations Earth Summit defined "biological diversity" as "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 part: this includes diversity within species, between [16] species and of ecosystems". This definition is used in the United Nations Convention on Biological [16] Diversity. One textbook's definition is "variation of life at all levels of biological organization".
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Geneticists define it as the diversity of genes and organisms. They study processes such [15] as mutations, gene transfer, and genome dynamics that generate evolution. Measuring diversity at one level in a group of organisms may not precisely correspond to diversity at other levels. However, tetrapod (terrestrialvertebrates) taxonomic and ecological diversity shows a very close correlation.

Species diversity
Species diversity is the effective number of different species that are represented in a collection of individuals (a dataset). The effective number of species refers to the number of equally-abundant species needed to obtain the same mean proportional species abundance as that observed in the dataset of interest (where all species may not be equally abundant). Species diversity consists of two components, species richness and species evenness. Species richness is a simple count of species, whereas species evenness quantifies how equal the abundances of the species

Ecosystem diversity
Ecosystem diversity refers to the diversity of a place at the level of ecosystems. The term differs from biodiversity, which refers to variation in species rather than ecosystems. Ecosystem diversity can also refer to the variety of ecosystems present in a biosphere, the variety of species and ecological processes that occur in different physical settings. [edit]Examples Some examples of ecosystems that are rich in diversity are:
Deserts Forests Large marine ecosystems Marine ecosystems Old growth forests Rainforests Tundra Coral Reefs

Genetic diversity
Genetic diversity, the level of biodiversity, refers to the total number of genetic characteristics in the genetic makeup of a species. It is distinguished from genetic variability, which describes the tendency of genetic characteristics to vary. Genetic diversity serves as a way for populations to adapt to changing environments. With more variation, it is more likely that some individuals in a population will possess variations of alleles that are suited for the environment. Those individuals are more likely to survive to produce offspring bearing that allele. The population will continue for more generations because of the success of these [1] individuals. The academic field of population genetics includes several hypotheses and theories regarding genetic diversity. The neutral theory of evolutionproposes that diversity is the result of the accumulation of neutral substitutions. Diversifying selection is the hypothesis that two subpopulations of a species live in different environments that select for different alleles at a particular locus. This may occur, for instance, if a species has a large range relative to the mobility of individuals within it. Frequencydependent selection is the hypothesis that as alleles become more common, they become more vulnerable. This in host-pathogen interactions, where a high frequency of a defensive allele among the host means that it is more likely that a pathogen will spread if it is able to overcome that allele.

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