OUR VIEW : What is biodiversity?
published: Thursday | March 30, 2006

The term Biodiversity is used to denote the variety of plants and animals in any locality or environment. Biodiversity can be expressed in a number of different ways and for our purposes here, we will define it as 'species richness' or the number of different species found living in Jamaica's ocean space, including the whole of Jamaica's Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). For the fullest understanding, we need to know not only the number of species but also the names of each species and what role each one plays in the ecology of the system. Only with this sort of information can we institute measures for the protection and conservation of our biodiversity.

3,500 DIFFERENT SPECIES

A recent study undertaken by Dr. George Warner and the present writer has determined that there are at least 3,500 different species of plants and animals in the Jamaican marine environment. This is a conservative estimate and future research will most certainly add significantly to the list. The reader must understand that this diversity includes much more than just corals, fishes, lobsters and other well recognised inhabitants of the sea, but includes everything from tiny worms and shrimp to large whales and dolphins, but excludes micro-organisms such as bacteria, viruses and fungi. It also includes organisms living in a very wide variety of marine habitats: coral reefs, mangrove lagoons, beaches, rocky shores, sea grass beds and even the deep sea down to depths of over 2,000 metres such as that which exists in the Walton Channel between the Pedro Bank and the St. Elizabeth coastline, an area of considerable species richness.