Introduction

INTRODUCTION

Diversity means variety and biodiversity refers to variety of living things.
Existence\ occurrence of varied form of living organisms [plants, animals, microbes] in a particular area is known as biodiversity.
These variations are in terms of physical, physiological, psychological, behavioral characteristics among living organisms from all sources including terrestrial, aquatic and other ecosystems. Like: Size\ color\ shape\ height\ food habit\ age etc.

S. No.	Character	Variation	Example
1	Size	Few micrometers to 100 meters	Microbes: 1 micron Whale: 30 meters Red wood trees of California: 100 meters
2	Age	Few minutes to 1000 years	Bacteria: 20 minutes approx. Mosquitoes: few days Dogs: 12 years Tortoise: 200 years Pine trees-1000 years
3	Shape	Irregular to well defined	Amoeba: irregular Paramecium: slipper shaped
4	Food habit	Autotrophic, heterotrophic Saprophytic, parasitic, holozoic etc.	Plants: Autotrophic Animals: Heterotrophic Human beings: holozoic Parasitic: tapeworm, leech Saprophytic: fungus etc
5	Color	Transparent to bright colors	Worms: transparent Butterflies: different colors Flowers: different colors etc

Such variations provide uniqueness to the organism and become the basis for diversity. Diversity is affected by surrounding conditions.
These diverse living forms interact with each other and with the environment for their survival and maintaining balance in the ecosystem. This interaction leads to the existence of a stable community of species in our surrounding.
Around ten million species have been estimated to exist on our planet in different zones with different climatic and geological conditions but only about one or two million are studied well.
Most of the living forms are found in the warm and humid tropical region of the earth between tropic of Cancer and tropic of Capricorn. This region is known as Zone of Megadiversity.
Brazil, Colombia, Peru, Mexico, Zaire, Madagascar, Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia etc. are present in this zone