Western Kentucky University TopSCHOLAR® DLPS Faculty Publications Library Public Services 5-2001 Biodiversity: The orW ld of Life Charles H. Smith Western Kentucky University,
[email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.wku.edu/dlps_fac_pub Part of the Biodiversity Commons, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Commons, Higher Education Commons, and the Library and Information Science Commons Recommended Citation Charles H. Smith, "Biodiversity: The orldW of Life" (May 2001). Choice 38(9): 1565-1580. This Article is brought to you for free and open access by TopSCHOLAR®. It has been accepted for inclusion in DLPS Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of TopSCHOLAR®. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. I BIBLIOGRAPHIC ESSAY The World of Life: Biodiversity Studies BY CHARLES SMITH multifarious ecosystems of the world. The key to effective analysis ofbio the literature on the former, concerned as diversity is the precise definition of it is with the basic description of millions Introduction each level oforganization when it is of species of animals and plants-not to being addressed. mention suborganismallevels of organiza tion and communities, ecosystems, and Wbat i.J bioiJiverJity? This definition may strike some ob the biosphere as a whole-would exist ( and servers as being just the slightest bit vague, did exist) independent of the recent bio or some 15 years the public at least to the extent that it fails to explain diversity movement. Practically every state has witnessed a sustained world how the concept is related to the various in the nation is represented by at least one Fwide movement that concerns natural studies that make it up, and that monographic study of its resident mam itself with understanding the in fact have existed as independently con mals, as are many individual species of mam natural diversity oflife, and how such di ceived lines of research for more than a mals (and even particular mammals from versity can be conserved.