Biodiversity

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Some of the biodiversity of a coral reef

Rainforests are an example of biodiversity on the planet, and typically possess a great deal of species
diversity. This is the Gambia River in Senegal's Niokolo-Koba National Park.
Biodiversity is the degree of variation of life forms within a given ecosystem, biome, or an
entire planet. Biodiversity is one measure of the health of ecosystems. Life on Earth today
consists of many millions of distinct biological species. The United Nations declared the year
2010 as the International Year of Biodiversity.

Biodiversity is not uniform across the Earth. In terrestrial habitats, for example, tropical regions
are typically rich whereas polar regions support fewer species.

Rapid environmental changes typically cause extinctions.[1] 99.9 percent of species that have
existed on Earth are now extinct.[2] Since life began on Earth, five major mass extinctions have
led to large and sudden drops in Earthly biodiversity. The Phanerozoic eon (the last 540 million
years) marked a rapid growth in biodiversity in the Cambrian explosion—a period during which
nearly every phylum of multicellular organisms first appeared. The next 400 million years was
distinguished by periodic, massive biodiversity losses classified as mass extinction events. The
Permo-Triassic Extinction, 251 million years ago was the worst, devastating life in the sea and
on land; vertebrate recovery took 30M years.[3]. The most recent, the Cretaceous–Tertiary
extinction event, occurred 65 million years ago, and has attracted more attention than all others
because it killed the nonavian dinosaurs.[4]

The period since the emergence of humans has displayed an ongoing reduction in biodiversity.
Named the Holocene extinction, the reduction is caused primarily by human impacts, particularly
the destruction of plant and animal habitat. In addition, human practices have caused a loss of
genetic diversity. Biodiversity's impact on human health is a major international issue.[citation
needed]

What Does It Mean to Be Lesbian?

Lesbians are women who love women. Lesbians are sexually attracted to other women and their
sexual feelings toward other women are normal and natural for them. Lesbians say they feel
emotionally and spiritually closer to women and prefer intimate relationships with women.
Experts estimate than about one out of 10 people may be lesbian or gay, and many historically
famous women were lesbians.