What is biodiversity? Explain in details.
Science
Class 10
758
Kirti
We find living organisms all around us, even deep under the oceans and in the snow covered Arctic and Antarctica. There are organisms which are single celled and microscopic, as well as animals as large as the elephant, the rhinoceros, the hippopotamus and the whale.
If you were to take a drop of water from the nearby pond and view it under a lens you will be amazed to see the enormous variety of organisms moving about in that drop of water. You might be wondering how many kinds of organisms there would be on earth! It is estimated that about 10 to 15 million different kinds of organisms have been found on earth including the ones that lived in the past. However, scientists have till date identified only over two million of them.
The enormous variety of organisms is termed biodiversity (bios means life and diversity means variety). There is not only diversity in size among organisms but also in complexity. eg. bacteria are simple single celled organisms and humans are made of a trillion cells and are highly complex.