Biodiversity loss
Encyclopedia Britannica, April 19, 2019
Abstract
biodiversity loss, also called loss of biodiversity, a decrease in biodiversity within a species, an ecosystem, a given geographic area, or Earth as a whole. Biodiversity, or biological diversity, is a term that refers to the number of genes, species, individual organisms within a given species, and biological communities within a defined geographic area, ranging from the smallest ecosystem to the global biosphere. (A biological community is an interacting group of various species in a common location.) Likewise, biodiversity loss describes the decline in the number, genetic variability, and variety of species, and the biological communities in a given area.
