Concept of Biodiversity

Biodiversity is composed of two words 'bio' and 'diversity'. Literally 'bio' means living being and 'diversity' means variety. So, biodiversity refers to the variety of living beings. Biodiversity of a location means the existence of organisms and species of living beings per square unit. It indicates a total of the living heritage of the earth and their states as well as differences. It indicates the system and structure of living beings in the nature.

In short, the biodiversity is the total number of the living organisms on the earth. Biodiversity can be classified into three groups i.e. ecosystem, genes and species. That's why, biodiversity is the degree of species diversity existed in a particular region i.e. natural habitat.

The biodiversity differs according to the geographical regions, climatic conditions and adaptability characters of the living beings. Some species of biodiversity are found in land, some are in land, some are in water whereas others are found even in atmosphere. The nature of ecosystem differs the biodiversity of a place to another. Accordingly they, too, are maintaining their ecosystem. Biodiversity of an area refers to existing organism, gene, animals and ecosystem per unit of land. In totality, biodiversity refers to the existing number of living organism and their diversity.

Species diversity include living beings and vegetation like man, animals, birds, plants and trees etc. the species of bacteria and virus, too are contained in it. Species denote the number of group of living beings according to their similarity.

Ecosystem is the habitat of living beings. Living beings survive according to their capacity and adaptation. Biodiversity is the result of the structure of ecosystem too. Every living beings have own genetic characteristics. For example, people in mountain can easily adopt in pretty cold whereas the people in the terai can tolerate very hot.

Genes control physical characteristics, growth and development. They change and reproduce themselves. They are passed on from one generation to another. It is because of genes that the organisms living in the terai can bear more heat than the organisms living in the mountains.