This is Biodiversity

Imagine wading downstream on a hot afternoon... 

A tangy, camphor scent underfoot and a sweet, azalea musk hanging in the still afternoon air tease your senses as you splash along a sun-hazy stream. White sand bubbling from a spring silently ripples the water's surface. Dancing nymphs and sluggish tadpoles dart from under your toes as your foot sinks into the soft, black ooze of the bank. A myriad of sleek, shiny fish slip past your legs as a sunning leopard frog pips, then splashes to underwater security. An insect symphony of droning cicadas and humming mosquitoes compete with the drilling of a pileated woodpecker searching for grubs...

All this deceptive tranquility took 3,400 million years to coalesce. This whole picture, from the physical environment to the individual species that share it to the genes that make up each organism, is biodiversity.