What is a Biome? A biome is a large area with similar flora, fauna, and microorganisms.

Most of us are familiar with the tropical rainforests, tundra in the arctic regions, and the evergreen trees in the coniferous forests. Each of these large communities contains species that are adapted to its varying conditions of water, heat, and soil. For instance, polar bears thrive in the arctic while cactus plants have a thick skin to help preserve water in the hot desert. What is an Ecosystem? An ecosystem is much smaller than a biome. Conversely, a biome can be thought of many similar ecosystems throughout the world grouped together. An ecosystem can be as large as the Sahara Desert, or as small as a puddle or vernal pool. Ecosystems are dynamic interactions between plants, animals, and microorganisms and their environment working together as a functional unit. Ecosystems will fail if they do not remain in balance. No community can carry more organisms than its food, water, and shelter can accommodate. Food and territory are often balanced by natural phenomena such as fire, disease, and the number of predators. Each organism has its own niche, or role, to play.

BIODIVERSITY Biodiversity is the part of nature which includes the difference in genes among the individuals of a species, the variety and richness of all the plant and animal species at different scales in space, locally in a region, in the country and the world and various types of ecosystems, both terrestrial and aquatic within a defined area. Biodiversity deals with the degree of natures variety in the biosphere.

Types of biodiversity Genetic diversity: The genetic variability within a species. Species diversity: The variety of species within a community Ecosystem diversity: The organization of species in an area into distinctive plant and animal communities.

Genetic diversity

Each member of any animal or plant species differs widely from other individuals in its genetic makeup because of the large number of combinations possible in the genes that give every individual specific characteristic. Thus, for example, each human being is very different from all others. This genetic variability is essential for a healthy breeding population of a species. If the number of breeding individuals is reduced, the dissimilarity of genetic makeup is reduced and in-breeding occurs. Eventually this can lead to the extinction of the species. The diversity in wild species forms the gene pool from which our crops and domestic animals have been developed over thousands of years. Today the variety of natures bounty is being further harnessed by using wild relatives of crop plants to create new varieties of more productive crops and to breed better domestic animals. Modern biotechnology manipulates genes for developing better types of medicines and a variety of industrial products.

Species diversity

The numbers of species of plants and animals that are present in a region constitutes its species diversity. This diversity is seen both in natural ecosystems and in agricultural ecosystems. Some areas are richer in species than others. Natural undisturbed tropical forests have much greater species richness than plantations. A natural forest ecosystem provides a large number of non-wood products that local people depend on such as fruit, fuel wood, fodder, fiber, gum, resin and medicines. Timber plantations do not provide the large variety of goods that are essential for local consumption. In the long-term the economic sustainable returns from non-wood forest products is said to be greater than the returns from felling a forest for its timber. Thus the value of a natural forest, with all its species richness is much greater than a plantation. At present conservation scientists have been able to identify and categorize about 1.75 million species on earth. However, many new species are being identified, especially in the flowering plants and insects. Areas that are rich in species diversity are called hotspots of diversity. India is among the worlds 15 nations that are exceptionally rich in species diversity.

Ecosystem Diversity There are a large variety of different ecosystems on earth, which have their own complement of distinctive inter linked species based on the differences in the habitat. Ecosystem diversity can be described for a specific geographical region, or a political entity such as a country, a State or a taluka. Distinctive ecosystems include landscapes such as forests, grasslands, deserts, mountains, etc., as well as aquatic ecosystems such as rivers, lakes, and the sea. Each region also has man-modified areas such as farmland or grazing pastures. An ecosystem is referred to as natural when it is relatively undisturbed by human activities or modified when it is changed to other types of uses, such as farmland or urban areas. Ecosystems are most natural in wilderness areas. If natural ecosystems are overused or misused their productivity eventually decreases and they are then said to be degraded. India is exceptionally rich in ecosystem diversity. Why Biodiversity is Important Introduction There is a great concern over the loss of biological diversity, but at the same time few people know in any detail what is happening to the planet's diversity or can really say why they believe it is important. What is biodiversity? When it comes to conserving biodiversity, the definition that we use for it becomes extremely important. Simply defining it as "nature" is too nebulous, and makes deciding what actions to take difficult. Besides, both a rainforest and a desert are part of nature, although their diversity is obviously very different. Perhaps it is better to define it as needed for a particular area of study; as long as the definition and its limitations are kept in mind, this may be the most appropriate way of dealing with this problem. A major concern with this approach is that if the context is not kept in mind, later conclusions can be reached that are drastically different from those intended.

Nature's Services to Humans Nature and biodiversity provide services that we take for granted. Clean water to drink, clean air to breathe, soil for agriculture, the pollinating effect of many insects and much more is provided for us but we tend not to pay much attention to these services. Because these services are largely invisible to us and difficult to give monetary values to, they tend to be given little weight when compared to development and policy decisions. The value of provided services has been calculated for small areas, but it was only a few years ago that an attempt to calculate the value of these services over the entire world was performed. They estimated that these services are worth at least 33 trillion (10^12) dollars, about twice the total economic output of the world! Although this estimate is crude and its exact value is debatable, it is very useful in pointing out just how important diversity is to us and how it should be taken more seriously in policy decisions than it is. Priorities for conservation are easier to decide upon if there is some basis for comparing and these lists and estimates at least provide a way to make the comparisons. Economic Reasons Nature provides huge direct and indirect economic benefits. In 1990 lumber cut in Canada (mostly from natural stands) had a value of $7.5 billion (10^9), while fishery catches were worth $1.5 billion. These values are for harvesting natural resources, and are limited by the natural productivity of nature. As can be seen by the recent crashes in the Atlantic fisheries, exceeding what nature can provide is economically dangerous, to say nothing of the ecological impacts. Modern crops are extremely specialized strains of naturally occurring species, and the land they grow on is the result of the natural systems that they have displaced. Agriculture in Canada is worth $18 billion dollars per year (as farm receipts) and farm livestock contributes $11 billion dollars a year, but farming techniques reduce biodiversity by replacing natural communities with extremely artificial systems (see page 3 of this section for details). Recreation brings in even more money; benefits derived from Canada's natural areas such as national parks totaled an estimated $12 billion in expenditures and an additional $5 billion dollars in tax

revenue in 1996. As ecotourism becomes more popular this value will increase in Canada, and internationally this source of income could be extremely important in the economies of developing nations. Medicine Out of the top 150 prescription drugs, 118 originally came from living creatures, mostly plants. Overall, seventy percent of pharmaceuticals now being used come from or are derived from natural products. Three substances that have been produced from the barks of tree species include: aspirin, from willow trees; quinine, which helps prevent malaria and is found in the bark of the quina tree; and taxol, a cancer-fighting drug derived from the bark of the Pacific yew tree. Digitalis, used to treat heart conditions, comes from the foxglove plant. The list goes on and on. With the obvious health and financial importance of plant products, the destruction of biodiversity is a terrible waste. No one knows how many compounds in plants and animals can be used. Even if only a small fraction of plants and organisms produce useful medicinal products, it is a potential boon that we can't ignore and shouldn't destroy. Many pharmaceutical companies are currently engaged in bioprospecting, which consists of testing plant species for potentially useful compounds, sometimes signing agreements with national governments for permission. How many compounds are being lost before they are found is a mystery, but the number of potentially useful compounds found has been large. Stability Many parts of the natural world prevent or slow rapid change. One example would be forests, which prevent erosion and also prevent heavy rains from turning into floods. To some extent the climate is naturally held somewhat constant as well. This does not require diversity as much as nature; a forest with low diversity will prevent erosion as well as one with high diversity. Our current infrastructure is specialized enough to require this sort of stability. The cost of repairing damage caused by flooding is enormous. Agricultural crops are specialized to grow extremely well, but only under specific conditions. If those conditions were to change, we would be forced to either move the crops to a region where those conditions exist or develop new strains of crops, both of

which would be a sizeable drain on resources. Road, buildings, bridges, all are designed for a particular type of climate. It the climate changes, these structures will begin to crumble. Aesthetic and Philosophical Importance The long list of concrete benefits that diversity and nature provide should be enough to convince anyone of its importance, but there are also more esoteric, though no less important, reasons. Unfortunately, religions and philosophies don't say much about diversity and nature. One religious tradition that fairly directly mentions biodiversity is Judeo-Christianity, which promotes wise stewardship of the Earth. Philosophies are usually focused on issues internal to ourselves, and don't truly deal with diversity either. Still, most religions and philosophies believe that destruction without just cause is wrong; as humans are responsible for most of the loss of diversity, we have a responsibility to stop doing harm and to repair as much of our damage as we can. Nature, and by extension diversity, also has an aesthetic quality. When people go hiking and canoeing it contributes to the economy in various ways but also enriches their lives. People experience nature in a way that goes beyond economics and also beyond nature's beauty. How does one say exactly how beautiful a forest is, or how much one enjoyed a hike? Because this enjoyment cannot reasonably be quantified, it tends to be ignored in debates about conservation. Only the economic revenues associated with people getting to natural areas can be measured, and it's at best a poor replacement. How do ecosystems function as a dynamic systems

Introduction of new elements, whether biotic or abiotic, into an ecosystem tend to have a disruptive effect. In some cases, this can lead to ecological collapse or "trophic cascading" and the death of many species within the ecosystem. Often, however, ecosystems have the ability to rebound from a disruptive agent. The difference between collapse or a gentle rebound is determined by two factorsthe toxicity of the introduced element and the resiliency of the original ecosystem. In other words, ecosystems are dynamic - their non-living elements change, and their living elements grow and die. And despite dramatic changes in individual elements, ecosystems can be resilient and stable.