Biodiversity And Conservation

Of the named species, > 70 per cent are animals, of which 70 per cent are insects. The group Fungi has more species than all the vertebrate species combined. India, with about 45,000 species of plants and twice as many species of animals, is one of the 12 mega diversity countries of the world. It is believed that communities with high diversity tend to be less variable, more productive and more resistant to biological invasions. Earth’s fossil history reveals incidence of mass extinctions in the past, but the present rates of extinction, largely attributed to human activities, are 100 to 1000 times higher. Nearly 700 species have become extinct in recent times and more than 15,500 species (of which > 650 are from India) currently face the threat of extinction. The causes of high extinction rates at present include habitat (particularly forests) loss and fragmentation, over-exploitation, biological invasions and c o - extinctions.