Abstract <p>In recent decades, an information boom has arisen around the concepts of biodiversity in the vortex of environmental aspects and problems. One negative consequence of its wide popularity has been the vagueness of the semantic content and the shapelessness of the construction of this venerated concept. This has complicated the mutual understanding of specialists in scientific and everyday ecology. Clarifications of the definition of the concept of biodiversity and the scope of its use, structuring, and connection with evolutionary theory are urgently needed. For this purpose, an ordered system of four structural categories of biodiversity is proposed, embodying the evolutionary potential of the population–species and biocenotic, biogeocenotic, and biosphere levels of life organization. The categories of biodiversity are designated as alpha, beta, gamma, and sigma biodiversity. Their emergence and long-term existence are due not only to the complex configuration of ranges that have arisen due to the capabilities of the biota, but, to a greater extent, to the structural features of the abiotic matrix of the external environment. First and foremost, modern runoff-water-collecting continental–oceanic and relict basins that have lost their former connection with the World Ocean are important. Such megahabitats, clearly delimited from each other by orographic, hydrological, and climatic barriers, contribute to isolation and provide biota with the opportunity to freely choose a set of environmental conditions. However, only biological species with a suitable set of preadaptations, capable of getting along with each other and stereotypically reproducing a standard set of biota over a long period of time, can use them. Attention is focused on biogeocenoses and their catenary compositions: grandbiomes, confined to heliozones of latitudinal extension and their derivatives—climatic, soil, and landscape zones. Biogeocenoses and grandbiomes, as elements of gamma biodiversity, unlike the previous categories, have the ability to involve in their contact not only living matter, but also inert matter, guaranteeing the transformation of an uncomfortable weathering crust into a comfortable living environment, regulated by the biota at its own discretion. Each evolutionarily subsequent category of biodiversity did not destroy or suppress the previous ones, but mutually incorporated them into its structure. Such a construction resembles a series of nesting dolls, which multiplies the stability of the biodiversity system and its potential, guaranteeing a long-term prolongation of life in time and ubiquity in the space of the Earth’s surface.</p>

Purpose and Design of Biodiversity

期刊论文
发表日期：

2025年6月24日

查看全文

V. G. Mordkovich

摘要

Abstract

In recent decades, an information boom has arisen around the concepts of biodiversity in the vortex of environmental aspects and problems. One negative consequence of its wide popularity has been the vagueness of the semantic content and the shapelessness of the construction of this venerated concept. This has complicated the mutual understanding of specialists in scientific and everyday ecology. Clarifications of the definition of the concept of biodiversity and the scope of its use, structuring, and connection with evolutionary theory are urgently needed. For this purpose, an ordered system of four structural categories of biodiversity is proposed, embodying the evolutionary potential of the population–species and biocenotic, biogeocenotic, and biosphere levels of life organization. The categories of biodiversity are designated as alpha, beta, gamma, and sigma biodiversity. Their emergence and long-term existence are due not only to the complex configuration of ranges that have arisen due to the capabilities of the biota, but, to a greater extent, to the structural features of the abiotic matrix of the external environment. First and foremost, modern runoff-water-collecting continental–oceanic and relict basins that have lost their former connection with the World Ocean are important. Such megahabitats, clearly delimited from each other by orographic, hydrological, and climatic barriers, contribute to isolation and provide biota with the opportunity to freely choose a set of environmental conditions. However, only biological species with a suitable set of preadaptations, capable of getting along with each other and stereotypically reproducing a standard set of biota over a long period of time, can use them. Attention is focused on biogeocenoses and their catenary compositions: grandbiomes, confined to heliozones of latitudinal extension and their derivatives—climatic, soil, and landscape zones. Biogeocenoses and grandbiomes, as elements of gamma biodiversity, unlike the previous categories, have the ability to involve in their contact not only living matter, but also inert matter, guaranteeing the transformation of an uncomfortable weathering crust into a comfortable living environment, regulated by the biota at its own discretion. Each evolutionarily subsequent category of biodiversity did not destroy or suppress the previous ones, but mutually incorporated them into its structure. Such a construction resembles a series of nesting dolls, which multiplies the stability of the biodiversity system and its potential, guaranteeing a long-term prolongation of life in time and ubiquity in the space of the Earth’s surface.