Biodiversity: The Very Stuff of Life

FeatureIssue 11
Written By Liz Thompson

Editor’s Note: What a gift to open our biodiversity issue with an essay by Liz Thompson, managing editor of From the Ground Up. Liz has spent a lifetime studying and conserving the natural world, and just as long noticing its quiet wonders: the smallest creatures, the lichens underfoot, and the lives often overlooked. That same care shapes every issue of this magazine, where Liz brings her keen eye, careful judgment, and generous heart to each word and image on our pages. The piece that follows invites us to see biodiversity as Liz sees it: with curiosity, humility, and a deep sense that all life is worthy of our attention and care. – Marissa Latshaw

 

“Look closely at nature. Every species is a masterpiece, exquisitely adapted to the particular environment in which it has survived. Who are we to destroy or even diminish biodiversity?” 

– E.O. Wilson
 


What grows in your woods? What crawls on the wet road in the early spring rains? What are those fungi on that dying tree? Who flies to your bird feeder? Who is too shy to come near? What butterflies land on the wildflower in the field? What is that shiny insect on the dogbane out back? What swims in the stream? What lives in the soil underground?

This is Biodiversity, the subject of this issue. We explore what it is, why it matters, how we measure it, what we know, and what we don’t know. We ask what we are losing, and how we can slow the loss. 

Monarch butterfly on joe pye weed. Photo © Liz Thompson

Dogbane beetle on spreading dogbane, its host. Photo © Liz Thompson

Tufted titmouse enjoying birdseed under a feeder. Photo © Liz Thompson

Dryad’s saddle on dying maple, Richmond, Vermont, town offices. Photo © Liz Thompson

Frogs and salamanders using a specially created passage during spring migration. Photo © Lynn Levine

Biodiversity: The Stuff of Life

 

“Biodiversity is the extraordinary variety of life on Earth—from genes and species to ecosystems and the valuable functions they perform.”

– National Museum of Natural History
 

This definition of biodiversity offers a broad and celebratory view of the term. There are many other definitions, and it’s worth looking at some of them.

The World Health Organization offers this: “Biodiversity, the variability among living organisms from all sources, underpins all life on Earth. This includes diversity within species, between species and across ecosystems, representing the genetic makeup of plants, animals, microorganisms and the complexity of ecosystems.”

E.O. Wilson, the noted biologist and author who coined the term “biodiversity,” explains it as “the very stuff of life.” The E.O. Wilson Biodiversity Foundation’s definition of the term gets a bit more specific, as do many authors on the topic: “Biodiversity refers to the total variety and variability of living organisms in a given area, including species, ecosystems, and genetic diversity.”

“In a given area” can be interpreted at many scales, from all of Earth itself, to a particular area of forest, wetland, or meadow. What grows there? What crawls there? What flies there? Is that maple tree genetically different from the one on the other side of the forest? Does that matter? 

 

Biodiversity definitions from each of the six New England states:

  • Massachusetts Department of Fish and Game: “[biodiversity is defined as] all the species, habitats, and complex interactions that make up the astonishing web of life.”

  • Maine Forest Biodiversity Project: “Broadly defined, biological diversity, or ‘biodiversity,’ includes all forms of life—trees and other plants, invertebrate and vertebrate animals, fungi, and microorganisms—as well as the different levels at which life operates, from genetic differences among individuals to complex interactions within ecosystems (Gawler et al. 1996, Hunter 1997). The term biodiversity encompasses biological ‘structures’ (genes, organisms, populations, or communities) as well as biological ‘processes’ (energy transfer, nutrient cycling, and succession).”

  • Audubon Society of Rhode Island: “Biodiversity is defined as the number of unique species supported in a region. It is an indicator of ecosystem health and resiliency.”

  • New Hampshire Forests and Lands : “Biodiversity is the variety and variability of all living organisms. It includes whole organisms, their genes, the natural communities in which they live, and the complex interactions among and between organisms and their physical environment.”

  • Vermont (Wetland, Woodland, Wildland): “Biological diversity (biodiversity): the complexity of life at all its levels of organization, including genetic variability within species, species interactions, ecological processes, and the distribution of species and natural communities across the landscape.”

  • Connecticut: “Biodiversity can be defined as the sum of life and its processes including the variety of living plants, animals, and other organisms, and the ecosystems in which they occur.”

 


In considering the definitions of biodiversity, we must be cautious not to equate it strictly with numbers. Species richness is a measure of the number of species in a given area, but that is only a part of biodiversity. Ecological processes, interactions among species, and relationships with the physical environment are also important aspects of biodiversity.

The Crisis We Face

By all accounts, we are in the midst of a biodiversity crisis. This is the Holocene or Anthropocene extinction, also called the sixth mass extinction. The habitats, ecosystems, and species that define life on Earth—including human life—are in grave danger. 

The 2019 IBPES Global Assessment on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services found that “Nature across most of the globe has now been significantly altered by multiple human drivers, with the great majority of indicators of ecosystems and biodiversity showing rapid decline.” This is an alarming statement by itself, but add to that the numbers. According to the World Wildlife Fund, “Currently, the species extinction rate is estimated between 1,000 and 10,000 times higher than natural extinction rates… [T]he current rates of species population decline and species extinction are high enough to threaten important ecological functions that support human life on Earth, such as a stable climate, predictable regional precipitation patterns, and productive farmland and fisheries.” 

The 2026 IBPES Business and Biodiversity Assessment highlights the fact that biodiversity loss, driven by economic growth, now threatens the economy, financial stability, and human well-being, and calls on businesses to pay attention and take responsibility. 

Rates of extinction vary across the globe, and across the conterminous United States. The threats in New England are generally not as great as those in, say, California, but there are some hotspots of threat here, too. And in the areas of low threat, we have a great opportunity to make things better before they get worse. 

Rates of extinction across the conterminous United States. White is low, red is high. Image courtesy of The New York Times

Solutions

 

“We are living in a time of ecological collapse. There is no way around it. But there is, I think, a way through. Perhaps the best we can do is to keep renewing the world and our love for it.”

— Chelsea Steinauer-Scudder, Mother, Creature, Kin
 

The World Wildlife Fund offers global solutions to the biodiversity crisis: Reduce climate emissions. Support the 30x30 initiatives of America the Beautiful and the Kunming-Montreal agreement. And act locally. 

How can we act locally? How can we renew the world and our love for it? Perhaps these four steps can be a start.

  1. Know and understand your home, your ecoregion;

  2. Teach others about the natural world. Involve them in appreciating it and caring for it. “You teach me, I forget. You show me, I remember. You involve me, I understand.” – E. O. Wilson;

  3. Protect lands and waters through permanent conservation; and

  4. Manage lands and waters to promote ecosystem health and biodiversity.

There are many efforts in New England to stem the tide of biodiversity loss. Among these are: 

In this issue, we report on efforts in New England to understand and celebrate the biodiversity of the region, to quantify the losses, and to offer hope for a future with healthier ecosystems and all the species and interactions they support.

Forests dominate our region, and how we manage those forests is critical as we think about biodiversity conservation. How can old-growth forests contribute? How can young forests contribute? How can ecological forestry improve ecosystem health and biodiversity while also providing us with timber, pulp, and other forest products?

Agriculture can contribute to the protection of biodiversity, too. Healthy soil, buffered waterways, and edge plantings for pollinators are only some of the ways that farming can help. 

Biodiversity is both an objective and outcome of the Wildlands, Woodlands, Farmlands & Communities vision that calls for an integrated approach to conserving the places in New England that so many species of plants, animals, and other organisms call home.

Hope

I see hope in the face of a child holding a salamander. I see hope in dead wood, where fungi live and work. I see hope in the young biologist discovering a plant thought to be long gone from her home state. I see hope in monarchs flitting among the native plants on the field edge. 

Child holding a salamander. Photo © Liz Thompson

Puffballs and other fungi. Photo © Liz Thompson

I see hope in Bob Perschel’s words:

Wren

By nature’s law the lovely wren
Soars on up and back again
To pluck a winter’s berry

– Robert Perschel, Numinosity, 2026

Liz Thompson, managing editor of From the Ground Up, has spent a lifetime noticing the small things that make up the “stuff of life.” From childhood she was fascinated by plants and where they grow. She was also disturbed by the rapid development in her home town. Her career in the conservation of natural communities included co-authoring Wetland, Woodland, Wildland, teaching and mentoring dozens of graduate students, and helping to add ecological protections to countless conservation easements. These days, she plans conferences, writes and edits, and wanders in nature—often with a camera.

Liz Thompson
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