(August 2003) “Biodiversity, the planet’s most valuable resource, is on loan to us from our children.” – Edward O. Wilson As a recent addition to the English language, with roots in both ecology and evolution, the definition of the word ‘biodiversity’ is still evolving. Zoologists and botanists typically consider biodiversity to refer to the variation and frequency of organisms within a given area, whereas evolutionary biologists may prefer to include in this definition the genes that contribute to the variation within a species as well. In either case, biodiversity can generally be defined as the total composition of evolutionary units…