What is biodiversity?
Biodiversity is the variety of living organisms found within an area. It can be considered at different scales, from a small local habitat to the whole Earth.
When studying biodiversity within a community, biologists are interested not only in which species are present but also in how the individuals are distributed between those species.
| Aspect | What is considered? |
|---|---|
| Habitat diversity | The range of different habitats or ecosystems within an area. |
| Species richness | The number of different species present in a community. |
| Species evenness | How evenly the individuals in a community are distributed among its species. |
Biodiversity within a community
A community may contain many different species, but the number of species alone does not show how those species are represented. For example, a community in which almost all organisms belong to one species is different from a community in which individuals are distributed more evenly.
This means that understanding species diversity requires considering both species richness and the numbers of individuals belonging to each species. These ideas are combined numerically by the index of diversity.