![]() When biodiversity loss through extinction is thought of as the loss of the passenger pigeon, the dodo, or, even, the woolly mammoth there seems to be no reason to care about it because these events happened long ago. However, biologists are using measures of biodiversity at several levels of biological organization (including genes, populations, and ecosystems) to help focus efforts to preserve the biologically and technologically important elements of biodiversity. Traditionally, ecologists have measured biodiversity by taking into account both the number of species and the number of individuals in each of those species. ![]() (credit: Frank Vassen)īiodiversity is a broad term for biological variety, and it can be measured at a number of organizational levels. This particular location is protected within a national forest, yet only 10 percent of the original coastal lowland forest remains, and research suggests half the original biodiversity has been lost. Figure 21.2 This tropical lowland rainforest in Madagascar is an example of a high biodiversity habitat.
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