Biodiversity: Concepts, Patterns, Trends, and Perspectives

Vocabulary practice flashcards covering foundational concepts, definitions, metrics, patterns, and drivers of biodiversity decline based on Díaz & Malhi (2022).

Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES)

An intergovernmental body established in 2012 to strengthen the science-policy interface for biodiversity conservation, sustainable use, and long-term human well-being.

Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD)

An international treaty created in 1992 that entered into force in 1993, dedicated to biodiversity conservation, sustainable use of its components, and fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from genetic resources.

Biodiversity (CBD Definition)

The variability among living organisms from all sources including terrestrial, marine, and other aquatic ecosystems and the ecological complexes of which they are part, explicitly encompassing diversity within species, between species, and of ecosystems.

Biodiversity (IPBES Consensus Definition)

The variability among living organisms from all sources, including terrestrial, marine, and other aquatic ecosystems and their ecological complexes, encompassing variation in genetic, phenotypic, phylogenetic, and functional attributes, as well as changes in abundance and distribution over time and space within and among species, biological communities, and ecosystems.

Anthropocene

The proposed geological epoch that marks human domination of key Earth system processes.

Fabric of Life

A metaphor denoting all living entities woven by natural processes over millions of years and in conjunction with people over thousands of years, emphasizing that humans are inextricably interwoven with nature.

Intrinsic Values of Nature

Biocentric values attributed to nonhuman nature per se, recognizing its inherent right to exist irrespective of human usefulness, preference, or consideration.

Nature’s Contributions to People

The myriad positive and negative effects that different components of nature, or nature as a whole, exert on people as individuals, societies, or humanity collectively.

Instrumental Values

Anthropocentric values that regard organisms, genes, ecosystems, or landscapes as means to achieve specific human ends, typically characterized by commensurability and replaceability.

Relational Values

Values that do not emanate directly from nature itself but derive from human relationships with and responsibilities toward nature, underpinning concepts of a meaningful life and moral duty, and typically being irreplaceable.

Phylogenetic Diversity

A biodiversity metric defined as the summation of branch lengths connecting a set of taxa on a phylogeny, quantifying the total amount of evolutionary history embodied in those taxa.

Operational Taxonomic Unit (OTU)

A pragmatic proxy for microbial species boundaries, typically defined by sharing at least $97\%$ sequence similarity in the 16S rRNA gene.

Deep Biosphere

The part of the biosphere residing below the first few meters of the land and seafloor surface (beneath the zone of animal bioturbation), housing vast amounts of bacterial and archaeal biomass.

Cradles of Biodiversity

Biomes or geographic regions characterized by exceptionally high historical speciation rates.

Museums of Biodiversity

Biomes or geographic regions characterized by low historical extinction rates that allow ancient lineages to persist over evolutionary time.

Biotic Homogenization

The decrease in the taxonomic, functional, phylogenetic, and species-richness distinctiveness of regional biotas worldwide, driven by the deliberate or involuntary human transport and establishment of organisms.

Contemporary Evolution

Ongoing or recent heritable phenotypic changes occurring in wild populations as a consequence of directional anthropogenic selection pressures such as hunting, fishing, urbanization, and chemical use.

Functional Extinction

The reduction of a species' population to levels so low that, although the species still persists in the wild, it can no longer fully perform its historical ecological roles within the community.

Local Extinction

The extirpation of a species from a specific portion of its geographical range, while populations continue to persist in other areas.

Global Extinction

The complete and permanent disappearance of every living individual of a species from the Earth.

Extinction Risk

A predictive metric assessing the probability of a species disappearing over a human-relevant timescale, evaluated based on species biology and extrinsic threats (such as the IUCN Red List).

Extinction Rate

The speed at which taxa disappear over time, typically estimated a posteriori and standardized in extinctions per million species per year ($\text{E/MSY}$).

Background Extinction Rate

The average baseline rate of species extinction resulting purely from nonhuman causes across geological history, with a scientific consensus of approximately $1\,\text{E/MSY}$.

Mass Extinction

A catastrophic event in Earth's history characterized by the loss of at least $75\%$ of species over a relatively short period of geological time.

Biodiversity Intactness Index (BII)

An ecological metric estimating the similarity between an area's current native terrestrial community composition and abundance and the community that would exist in the absence of human impacts.

Direct Drivers of Biodiversity Decline

Natural or human-caused factors that exert direct physical impacts on nature, globally dominated by land- and sea-use change, direct exploitation, climate change, pollution, and invasive alien species.

Indirect Drivers of Biodiversity Decline

Underlying human-caused social, economic, demographic, cultural, institutional, and political factors that govern the intensity, direction, and magnitude of direct physical drivers.

Sensory Pollutants

Anthropogenic pollutants, specifically artificial light at night and human-generated noise, that disrupt natural environmental cues, animal behavior, and communication.

Skyglow

The diffuse brightening of the night sky caused by upwardly emitted and reflected artificial light scattering in the atmosphere, often extending hundreds of kilometers from urban areas.

Telecouplings

Socioeconomic and environmental interactions and feedbacks across long geographical distances that connect distant consumption choices, financial systems, and institutions with local ecological degradation.

Transformative Change

A fundamental, system-wide reorganization across technological, economic, and social factors—including overarching paradigms, goals, and values—necessary to halt and reverse global biodiversity loss.