Give an account of global biodiversity
Global biodiversity: 1. According to IUCN (2004), the total number of plant and animal species described is about 1.5 million. The species inventories for taxonomic groups in temperate countries/ regions are more complete than those in tropical countries/regions. 2. A more conservative and scientifically sound estimate has been made by Robert May; it puts the global species diversity at about seven million. More than 70% of all the species recorded are animals and plants account for about 22%; 70% of the animals are insects. These estimates do not give any figure for prokaryotes for the following reasons: The conventional taxonomic methods are not suitable/sufficient for identifying these microbial species, Many of these species cannot be cultured under laboratory conditions. Biochemical and molecular biology techniques would put their diversity into millions.
