Biodiversity, as a biological phenomenon, denotes the variability and complexity of life across genes, species, populations, communities, and ecosystems, including their functional traits and phylogenetic relationships. It emerges from evolutionary processes such as mutation, selection, gene flow, and drift, and is structured by ecological interactions, environmental gradients, and spatiotemporal dynamics. Biodiversity influences and reflects ecosystem functioning, stability, and resilience through mechanisms like complementarity, redundancy, and trophic interactions. It is quantitatively characterized using metrics of richness, evenness, turnover, and functional or phylogenetic diversity, and its patterns are central to understanding biogeography, ecosystem processes, and responses to environmental change.
A lot of attention has been paid to how climate change can drive biodiversity loss. Now, MIT researchers have shown that the reverse is also true: Reductions in biodiversity can jeopardize one of Earth's most powerful levers ...
Earth Sciences
Jul 28, 2025
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99
Biodiversity loss ranks among the world's most pressing crises, prompting global action under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework—adopted at the 15th Conference of the Parties to the U.N. Convention on Biological ...
Ecology
Jul 28, 2025
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41
Expanding efforts to measure, monitor and protect soil biodiversity around the world will intensify further with the establishment of the Global Soil Biodiversity Observatory, to be led by the Food and Agriculture Organization ...
Ecology
Jul 25, 2025
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29
Using more than 2.8 billion fungal sequences sampled from 130 countries, scientists map the biodiversity of Earth's underground mycorrhizal fungal communities.
Plants & Animals
Jul 23, 2025
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305
Indigenous agroforests (food-producing agroecosystems where trees and crops grow together in forest-like environments) may offer valuable insights for addressing two of the world's biggest challenges: declining biodiversity ...
Ecology
Jul 22, 2025
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17
Researchers have conducted the world's biggest ever bird survey, recording 971 different species living in forests and cattle pastures across the South American country of Colombia. This represents almost 10% of the world's ...
Plants & Animals
Jul 22, 2025
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147
Biodiversity is in rapid decline, across the UK and globally. Butterflies are excellent for helping us understand these changes. Where butterfly communities are rich and diverse, so too is the ecosystem. But the opposite ...
Ecology
Jul 20, 2025
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53
Imagine a prairie. How many plant species do you see? Maybe you're picturing yellow coneflowers, some little bluestem, perhaps a few asters. But plant ecologists at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign say these ecosystems ...
Plants & Animals
Jul 17, 2025
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49
Biodiversity is critical to humanity's sustainable future, but global species extinction is accelerating due to environmental changes and human activities. The Yarlung Tsangpo River, which originates in the Himalayas, flows ...
Ecology
Jul 17, 2025
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22
A study published in People and Nature finds that both sight and sound influence perception of biodiversity, and participants were slightly more accurate when assessing forest biodiversity through sound alone than through ...
Plants & Animals
Jul 8, 2025
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29
