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Article: Biodiversity
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CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2003 The Gale Group Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Biodiversity
Biodiversity describes the variety of biological organisms in a given
habitat
, area, or
ecosystem
. It includes several components involving variation in species, ecosystems, and genetics.
Species diversity is perhaps what most people think of when they think of biodiversity. Species biodiversity describes the number of different species of plants, animals, fungi, protists, or bacteria within an area of interest. Although there are approximately 1.5 million named species globally, the large majority of species have yet to be studied or named, and there are likely to be as many as 10 million species on Earth.
Ecosystem diversity describes the variety of habitat types found ...