Biodiversity
Biodiversity: What is it?
Biodiversity is a term which stands for biological diversity. Biodiversity, in a broad context, refers to all living organisms in a particular area. More specifically, biodiversity includes all organisms, species and populations and their interactions with the environment. The environment in this instance can be an entire ecosystem or just a small garden in front of a house [9,15].
Biodiversity can be further viewed on three levels:
Alpha: it refers to the diversity at the species level. More precisely, it refers to the number of species per square meter in a specific area or habitat.
Beta: is the diversity at the population level. Thus, it is a ratio between local (or alpha diversity) and regional diversity.
Gamma: is the total diversity of the area brian walker resilience thinking [9,15].
To illustrate the relationship between these three levels of biodiversity, Nils van Rooijen- Postdoc, Plant Ecology and Physiology- gives a vital example of Turkmenistan vs. the Netherlands where the degree of diversity variates between the levels. For instance, one country can have lower gamma diversity (Turkmenistan), then other country, but at the same time, might have higher alpha diversity (Turkmenistan) due to species adaptation to each habitat, while in the other country it may be that the species are very similar over the whole country (the Netherlands).
Nils van Rooijen also urges us to remember that, biodiversity is a context-dependent concept which means that every area or environment has its own biodiversity. This is important to keep in mind when trying to determine the biodiversity of the area.