Synonyms
Definition/Description
Biodiversity is the shortened form of two words “biological” and “diversity.” Since the Convention on Biological Diversity was adopted at the Rio “Earth Summit” in 1992 (UNCED 1993), biodiversity has been discussed on three dimensions: ecosystems, species, and genes. Ecosystem diversity relates to the variety of habitats, biotic communities, ecological processes, and the diversity within ecosystems. An ecosystem is (UN 1992): “a dynamic complex of plant, animal, and micro-organism communities and their non-living environment interacting as a functional unit.” For a business, an ecosystem perspective focuses on where a company operates within the ecological landscape (IUCN 2002).
Species diversity refers to the variety of species within a region. The “biological species definition” or the “biological species concept” is based on Ernst Mayr’s definition (Mayr 1942): “Species are groups of actually or potentially interbreeding natural...
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
References
Alexander, D. E., & Fairbridge, R. W. (Eds.). (1999). Encyclopedia of environmental science. Dordrecht: Springer. ISBN 978-1-4020-4494-6.
Butchart, S. H. M., Walpole, M., Collen, B., van Strien, A., Scharlemann, J. P. W., Almond, R. E. A., & Watson, R. (2010). Global biodiversity: Indicators of recent declines. Science, 328, 1164–1168. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1187512.
Chace, J. F., & Walsh, J. J. (2006). Urban effects on native avifauna: A review. Landscape and Urban Planning, 74(1), 46–69.
CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility). (2011). Reporting 2011, planet. http://csrreporting.sanofi.com/web/planet/biodiversity. Accessed 31 Oct 2012.
Davenport, M. A., & Anderson, D. H. (2005). Getting from sense of place to place-based management: An interpretive investigation of place meanings and perceptions of landscape change. Society and Natural Resources, 18(7), 625–641. https://doi.org/10.1080/08941920590959613.
Earthwatch. (2018). Company biodiversity action plan. Biodiversity forms one of the corner stones of sustainable development. The Business & Biodiversity Resource Centre. http://www.businessandbiodiversity.org/action_company_bap.html. Accessed 31 Oct 2018.
Fuller, R. A., Tratalos, J., Warren, P. H., Davies, R. G., Pępkowska, A., & Gaston, K. J. (2010). Environment and biodiversity. Chapter 4. In M. Jenks, & C. Jones (Eds.), Dimensions of the sustainable city. Future city, 2 (pp. 75–103). Springer: Science+Business Media B.V. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-8647-2_4.
Gaston, K. J., & Spicer, J. I. (2004). Biodiversity: An introduction (2nd ed.). Oxford: Blackwell.
Gobster, P. H., Nassauer, J. I., Daniel, T. C., & Fry, G. (2007). The shared landscape: What does aesthetics have to do with ecology? Landscape Ecology, 22, 959–972. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-007-9110-x.
Henry, J. A., & Dicks, S. E. (1987). Association of urban temperatures with land-use and surface materials. Landscape and Urban Planning, 14(1), 21–29.
Heywood, V. H., & Watson, R. T. (1995). Global biodiversity assessment. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Hoffman, B. D., & Courchamp, F. (2016). Biological invasions and natural colonisations: Are they that different? NeoBiota, 29, 1–14. https://doi.org/10.3897/neobiota.29.6959. Accessed 31 Oct 2018.
Holdgate, M. W. (1979). Pollution and pollutants. Definitions. In M. W. Holdgate (Ed.), A perspective of environmental pollution (p. 17). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521 299721 1.
IUCN. (2002). Business & biodiversity – The handbook for corporate action. World Business Council for Sustainable Development, Earthwatch Institute. https://portals.iucn.org/library/sites/library/files/documents/2002-022.pdf. Accessed 12 November 2018.
Kassas, M. (2002). Environmental education: Biodiversity. Environmentalist, 22, 345–351.
Kelemen, E., García-Llorente, M., Pataki, G., Martín-López, B., & Gómez-Baggethun, E. (2016). Non-monetary techniques for the valuation of ecosystem service. In M. Potschin-Young, & K. Jax (Eds.), OpenNESS ecosystem services reference book. http://www.openness-project.eu/library/reference-book. Accessed 12 Nov 2018.
Larson, S., De Freitas, D. M., & Hicks, C. C. (2013). Sense of place as a determinant of people’s attitudes towards the environment: Implications for natural resources management and planning in the Great Barrier Reef, Australia. Journal of Environmental Management, 117, 226–234. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2012.11.035.
Lin, N., Chen, H., Jing, S., Liu, F., & Liang, X. (2017). Biomimicry of symbiotic multi-species coevolution for discrete and continuous optimization in RFID networks. Saudi Journal of Biological Sciences, 24, 610–621. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1319562X17300426. Accessed 31 Oct 2018.
Manchester, S. J., & Bullock, J. M. (2000). The impacts of non-native species on UK biodiversity and the effectiveness of control. Journal of Applied Ecology, 37, 845–864.
Mayr, E. (1942). Systematics and the origin of species. New York: Columbia University Press.
McKinney, M. L. (2002). Urbanization, biodiversity, and conservation. Bioscience, 52(10), 883–890.
MEA (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment). (2003). Ecosystems and human well being: A framework for assessment. Washington, DC: Island Press. http://pdf.wri.org/ecosystems_human_wellbeing.pdf. Accessed 31 Oct 2018.
MEA (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment). (2005). Ecosystems and human well-being: Synthesis. Washington, DC: Island Press. https://www.millenniumassessment.org/documents/document.356.aspx.pdf. Accessed 28 Nov 2018.
Ministry of Environment & Finnish Environment Institute. (2016). Natural habitats. http://www.ymparisto.fi/en-US/Nature/Natural_habitats. Accessed 4 Nov 2018.
Niemelä, J. (1999). Ecology and urban planning. Biodiversity and Conservation, 8(1), 119–131.
Pickett, S. T. A., Cadenasso, M. L., Grove, J. M., Nilon, C. H., Pouyat, R. V., Zipperer, W. C., & Costanza, R. (2001). Urban ecological systems: Linking terrestrial ecological, physical, and socioeconomic components of metropolitan areas. Annual Reviews in Ecology and Systematics, 32, 127–157.
Rai, P. K. (2016). Particulate matter and its size fractionation. In Biomagnetic monitoring of particulate matter in the Indo-Burma hotspot region 2016 (pp. 1–13). https://doi.org/10.1016/C2015-0-01874-3. Accessed 31 Oct 2018.
Rebele, F. (1994). Urban ecology and special features of urban ecosystems. Global Ecology and Biogeography Letters, 4(6), 173–187.
Ruggiero, M. A., Gordon, D. P., Orrell, T. M., Bailly, N., Bourgoin, T., Brusca, R. C., Cavalier-Smith, T., Guiry, M. D., & Kirk, P. M. (2015). A higher level classification of all living organisms. PLoS One, 10(4), e0119248. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0119248. Accessed 31 Oct 2018.
Sala, O. E., Mayerson, L. A., & Parmesan, C. (Eds.). (2009). Biodiversity change and human health: From ecosystem services to spread of diseases (Scientific Committee on Problems of the Environment (SCOPE), 69). Washington, DC: Island Press. ISBN 9781597264969.
Schulze, E.-D., Beck, E., & Müller-Hohenstein, K. (2005). Plant ecology. Heidelberg: Springer.
UN (United Nations). (1992). Convention on biological diversity. https://www.cbd.int/doc/legal/cbd-en.pdf. Accessed 29 Oct 2018.
UN (United Nations). (2018). Climate change and biodiversity. Convension on biological diversity. https://www.cbd.int/climate/intro.shtml. Accessed 31 Oct 2018.
UN Environment (United Nations Environment). (2018). Biodiversity and ecosystems. http://www.unenvironment.org/explore-topics/resource-efficiency/what-we-do/cities/biodiversity-and-ecosystems. Accessed 4 Nov 2018.
UNCED (United Nations Conference on Environment and Development). (1993). The final text of agreements negotiated by governments at United Nation’s Conference on Environment and Development, in agenda 21: Programme of action for sustainable development: Rio declaration on environment and development; statement of forest principles. In Proceedings of the UNCED (United Nations Conference on Environment and Development), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 3–14 June 1992. New York: United Nations Department of Public Information.
UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization). (2014). Learning about biodiversity – Multiple-perspective approaches; education for sustainable development in action. Learning and training tools, 6; UNESCO education sector. United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (2005–2014). http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0023/002311/231155e.pdf. Accessed 29 Oct 2018.
van Weelie, D., & Wals, A. E. J. (2002). Making biodiversity meaningful through environmental education. International Journal of Science Education, 24(11), 1143–1156. https://doi.org/10.1080/09500690210134839.
WCED (World Commission on Environment and Development). (1987). Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development: Our common future. UN Documents Gathering a body of global agreements. http://www.un-documents.net/wced-ocf.htm. Accessed 27 Oct 2018.
Williams, D. R., & Stewart, S. I. (1998). Sense of place. An elusive concept that is finding a home in ecosystem management. Journal of Forestry, 96(5), 18–23.
Woese, C., Kandler, O., & Wheelis, M. (1990). Towards a natural system of organisms: Proposal for the domains Archaea, Bacteria, and Eucarya. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 87(12), 4576–4579. http://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/87/12/4576.full.pdf. Accessed 4 Nov 2018.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Section Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this entry
Cite this entry
Jeronen, E. (2019). Biodiversity: Environment. In: Idowu, S., Schmidpeter, R., Capaldi, N., Zu, L., Del Baldo, M., Abreu, R. (eds) Encyclopedia of Sustainable Management. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02006-4_902-1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02006-4_902-1
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-02006-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-02006-4
eBook Packages: Springer Reference Business and ManagementReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences