Defining biodiversity is very simple - the variety of species that exist in a given ecosystem.

Understanding how to quantify biodiversity, and why it is healthier for an ecosystem to have a higher degree of biodiversity is much more complicated....

 

Here's a fact sheet about biodiversity from the Ecological Society of America

 

 

Videos

 

A CNN Presents segment on the plight of shark species world wide.

 

 

 

Here's a great video from HHMI (the Howard Hughes Medical Institute).