Lesson Summary

• Biodiversity refers to the variety of life in a particular area.

• The higher the biodiversity, the healthier the ecosystem.

• Biodiversity index = # species in the area / # individuals in the area.

• Between 1.5 and 1.75 million species have been discovered.

• The order of classification from general to specific: Kingdom -> Phylum -> Class -> Order -> Family -> Genus -> Species.

• The Linnaean classification gives every species two names. The first name is the genus name for the family of organisms that resemble it. The second name is for the species, which is only given to that kind of creature.

• There are three steps to classifying organisms: 1) find the species within an ecosystem, 2) compare them to other ecosystems, and 3) determine the relationship between species.