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.
For decades, scientists and conservationists have been using aboveground plant biodiversity as a metric for conserving ecosystems. Now, a new study finds that there is a major mismatch between aboveground plant diversity ...
Ecology
Jul 31, 2025
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Dikes are indispensable for bees, especially if they are home to many different plant and flower species. A large census conducted on 157 dikes along rivers in the Netherlands revealed that more and rarer bee species live ...
Plants & Animals
Jul 30, 2025
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22
The system for assessing the health of England's rivers states that just 14% are in good ecological health but an independent report for Defra says this masks improvements in freshwater biodiversity—and has proposed an ...
Ecology
Jul 29, 2025
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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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41
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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1
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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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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154
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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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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49
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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