Conservation of biodiversity connects biodiversity measurement, human-driven losses, ecosystem evidence, and targeted conservation strategies for protecting species, communities, and evolutionary history.
Coverage 2010–2025 · Updated 15 Jul 2026
• Biodiversity is the variety of life in its forms, levels, and combinations
• It includes ecosystem, species, and genetic diversity
• Species diversity depends on richness and evenness; Simpson's reciprocal index compares communities
• About 9 million species are estimated, with many still undescribed
• Fossils and radiometric dating give incomplete evidence of past biodiversity
• Current species diversity may be higher than in the past, but fossil gaps make this uncertain
• Human activity is driving a sixth mass extinction
• Hunting, habitat change, and resource use caused extinctions such as North Island giant moa
• Caribbean monk seal loss shows how removing a top predator can alter food webs
• Ecosystem loss is mainly caused by anthropogenic disturbance and habitat conversion
• Mixed dipterocarp forests in Borneo are lost through logging and oil palm plantations
• Great Barrier Reef loss is linked to climate, pollution, fishing, and other human pressures
• IPBES reports and repeated biodiversity surveys provide evidence of crisis
• Richness, evenness, and Simpson's reciprocal index can compare disturbed and undisturbed habitats
• Peer-reviewed studies and citizen science both contribute data, with reliability checks needed
• Human population growth increases demand for food, housing, energy, and land
• Major drivers include overexploitation, urbanization, deforestation, agriculture, mining, and pollution
• Invasive species such as lionfish and water hyacinth can outcompete or disrupt native species
• Conservation needs multiple approaches because species and threats differ
• In situ conservation uses protected areas, reserve design, corridors, active management, and rewilding
• Ex situ conservation uses zoos, captive breeding, botanic gardens, seed banks, and tissue banks
• EDGE prioritizes evolutionarily distinct and globally endangered species
• It combines phylogenetic uniqueness with IUCN extinction risk
• The goal is to prevent disproportionate loss of evolutionary history
