Definition: The diversity and variety of plants, animals and
other living organisims in any particular area or region.

"Great biological diversity takes long stretches of geologica time and the accumulation of large reservoirs of unique genes. The riches ecosystems build slowly, over millions of years. It is further true that by chance alone only a few new species ar poised to move into novel adaptive zones, to create something spectacular and stretch the limits of diversity. A panda or a sequoia represents a magnitude of evolution that comes along only rarely. It takes a stroke of luck and a long period of probing, experimentation, and failure. Such ac reation is part of deep history, and the planet does not have the means nor we the time to see it repeated."

• Angiosperms - Plants that flower and form fruits (ovary) with seeds (the Earth's most common plant form) - see Gymnosperms below.
• Allelopathy - Root secretions that kill other plants.
• Biomimicry - Is (from www.BioMimicry.org):
• Is a new science that studies nature's models and then imitates or takes inspiration from these designs and processes to solve human problems, e.g., a solar cell inspired by a leaf.
• Uses an ecological standard to judge the "rightness" of our innovations. After 3.8 billion years of evolution, nature has learned: What works. What is appropriate. What lasts.
• Is a new way of viewing and valuing nature. It introduces an era based not on what we can extract from the natural world, but on what we can learn from it.
• Detritivore - An animal that feeds on animal and plant waste or remains, sequentially reducing the particle sizes so that the true decomposers, bacteria and fungi, can break them down to their constituent chemical parts for recycling in the ecosystem.
• Endophytes - "within plant," from the Greek, fungi and bacteria living inside of leaves and needles.
• Epiphytes - "air plants" that depend on trees or other plants for support, but not nutrients.
• Gymnosperms - Plants whose seeds are not enclosed by a ripened ovary (fruit) - see Angiosperms above. An example would be a typical pine cone.
• Lignin - comprises as much as one fourth of the volume of wood, acting like a cement holding the cellulose, pectin and related polysaccharides together (It is lignin that lends the vanilla odor to fresh sawdust).
• Precautionary Principle - In order to protect the environment, the precautionary approach shall be widely applied by States according to their capabilities. Where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation. [Article 15 of the Rio declaration of 1992]
• Punctuated Equilibrium - a term developed by evoluntionary biologists to define nature's patterns of sudden pulses of speciation and extinction, followed by long periods of more subdued evolutionary activity.
• Rhizome - a lateral, underground root system, sending out above-ground shoots to forma vast network.
• Saprotrophs - fungi or bacteria that live on and help decay dead organic matter.