Biological diversity – or biodiversity – is a term that became known primarily through the entomologist Edward Osborne Wilson. In his publication “Biodiversity” published in 1988, he proposes to treat biodiversity as a global resource that needs to be protected and indexed [1]. Biodiversity as a concept does not only exist in biology or ecology, but early on aimed to address in particular policy makers and the general public. From the first mention, biodiversity has been associated with the protection and conservation of nature [2, 3, 4]. The term biodiversity has a variety of definitions. Since the United Nations (UN) Conference on the Environment in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, biodiversity has been defined as the “variability among living organisms from all sources, including, inter alia, terrestrial, marine and other aquatic ecosystems and the ecological complexes of which they are part. This includes diversity within species, between species and ecosystem diversity” [5, 6]. The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA) defines biodiversity as the “diversity of life on Earth”, which includes the “diversity of all organisms, whether plants, animals or microorganisms, the diversity within and between species and populations, and the diversity of ecosystems” [7].

The integrity of biodiversity is a crucial factor in the functioning of any global ecosystem. A healthy state of biodiversity is not only necessary to keep nutrient cycles and abiotic fluxes running, but also to ensure the provision of ecosystem services. The loss of ecosystem services is likely to have negative impacts on human health.

[1] Wilson (1988): Wilson, E.O. 1988. Biodiversity. Washington (DC) : National Academies Press (US), 1988. ISBN: 0-309-03739-5
[2] Nentwig et al.(2007): Nentwig, W., Bacher, S. und Brandl, R. 2007. Ökologie Kompakt. Berlin Heidelberg : Springer Verlag, 2007. ISBN: 978-3827418760
[3] Heinrichs, et al. (2014): Heinrichs, H. und Michelsen, G. 2014. Nachhaltigkeitswissenschaften. Berlin Heidelberg : Springer Verlag, 2014. ISBN: 978-3642251115
[4] Härdtle (2002): Härdtle, W. 2002. Studium der Umweltwissenschaften: Naturwissenschaften. Berlin Heidelberg : Springer Verlag, 2002. ISBN: 978-3540410829
[5] CBD (2005): CBD. 2005. Handbook of the Convention on Biological Diversity. Montreal : Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity, 2005. ISBN: 92-9225-011-6.
[6] UNEP (1992): UNEP. 1992. Convention on biological diversity: Text and annexes. Geneva : UNEP, 1992.
[7] MEA (2005):MEA, Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. 2005. Ecosystems & human well-being – synthesis. Washington : Island Press, 2005.