The study of classification and expertise on “obscure” groups of organisms such as periwinkles,<br>leeches, springtails and mites may receive the needed boost by association with what has come<br>to be known as biodiversity studies. Biodiversity studies constitute a hybrid discipline that took<br>solid form during the 1980s. They can be defined (a bit formally, | admit, but bear with me) as<br>follows: the systematic examination of the full array of organisms and the origin of this diversity,<br>together with the technology by which diversity can be maintained and utilized for the benefit of<br>humanity. Thus biodiversity studies are both scientific in nature, a branch of pure evolutionary<br>biology, and applied studies, a branch of biotechnology.<br><br>Two events during the past quarter-century brought biodiversity to center stage and encouraged<br>the deliberately hybrid form of its analysis. The first was the recognition that human activity<br>threatens the extinction of not only a few “star” species such as giant pandas and California<br>condors, but also a large fraction of all the species of plants and animals on earth. At least one-<br>quarter of the species on earth are likely to vanish due to the cutting and burning of tropical<br>rainforests alone if the current rate of destruction continues. The second reason for the new<br>prominence of biodiversity studies is the recognition that extinction can be slowed and eventually<br>halted without significant cost to humanity. Extinction is not a price we are compelled to pay for<br>economic progress. Quite the contrary: As the examples of the rosy periwinkle and medicinal leech<br>suggest, conservation can promote human welfare. Uttimately conservation might even be<br>necessary for continued progress in many realms of human endeavor.<br>