Biodiversity

General

Biodiversity or biological diversity is the sum total of the variety of life and its interactions and can be subdivided into 1) Genetic Diversity 2) Species Diversity, and 3) Ecological or Ecosystem Diversity.

Genetic Diversity

This section of the NBII lists many of the most important National and International website links that give the user fast comprehensive access to information and data on the genetic diversity of the biosphere.

Species Diversity

All Biota | Viruses | Protists | Fungi | Plants | Animals
This section of the NBII gives the visitor a taste of the tremendous variability of life, linking to selected WWW sites that emphasize brief descriptions and images of the wide assortment of life to be discovered within the biosphere.

Ecological or Ecosystem Diversity

This section of the NBII gives links to numerous websites that characterize and give examples of the diversity of ecosystems and the everpresent diversity of biotic and abiotic relationships inherent in our biosphere.

Geopolitical Perspectives

This section of the NBII provides links to numerous sites, both U.S. and International, that give a geographic or political unit focus to biological diversity. These links include websites with biodiversity information at International, Regional, State and Local scales.

Systematics

Systematics, or taxonomy, is the branch of biological sciences that deals with identification, description, naming and classification of the world's biota. This section of the NBII provides the user with access to WWW sites that provide biological names of organisms and their classification that shows the evolutionary relationship among the species and taxonomic units included within the classification system.

Collections

Collections are the assemblages of organisms, both living and dead, that are organized and curated by scientists to provide the formal documentation of the world's known biodiversity. They include museums, zoos, arboreta, botanical gardens and private and public research collections used by scientists to more fully understand and document the variability of the earth's biodiversity.

This NBII site is developed and maintained by the
Center for Biological Informatics of the U.S. Geological Survey

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