CHAPTER ONE What is Biodiversity Did you know that scientists have identified more than 1 7 million species living on Earth There are insects plants fish reptiles amphibians birds and mammals living on the land in the air and in the water And those are just the ones you can see There are also millions of microorganisms that live all around us that you can’t see toucan bromeliad Rainforests hold some of the richest and most diverse ecosystems in the world More than half of the world’s plant and animal species live in rainforests 4
That’s not all Scientists believe that there are millions more living on Earth that have not been discovered yet That’s a lot of living things Biodiversity is a simple idea It is the enormous variety of life on Earth It includes all of the plants animals fungi and other living things in an area This life is interconnected like pieces of a puzzle red-eyed tree frog sundew plant 5
An easy way to measure biodiversity is to count the number of species in an area Scientists classify similar living things in groups called species For example horses ladybugs and roses are all different species Areas with a large number of different species have high biodiversity quarter horses While quarter horses ladybugs and water lilies may live and grow in the same area each belongs to a different species ladybugs water lilies 6
Another type of biodiversity is in an organism’s genes The cells of all living organisms have genes Genes hold the instructions that decide what the organism looks like and how it works Every species has different genes That is what makes a tree different from a horse Did You Know Some living things in the same species have genes that make them different For example poodles retrievers and boxers are all dogs The difference in their genes creates different types of dogs poodle retriever boxer 7
