If you spot a boreal toad during your outdoor adventures, report the location to the CDOW office nearest you. Admittedly, it is a vague term. Even some of the world's top scientists agree that it is a difficult concept to explain. Generally speaking, biodiversity refers to the variety of life on Earth - the full array of living things and the natural processes with which they interact. Let's start with the concept of genes, the basic building blocks that make up every living thing.
Different genes make up different species.
And different groups of species make up populations, while different populations compose natural communities, which make up ecosystems. This is the assembly of life that took billions of years to evolve. Unfortunately, we are loosing the elements of biological diversity at an alarming rate. From fossil records, scientists conclude that the natural rate of extinction is the loss of one species per millennium. Obviously, this loss of biodiversity is devastating to all life on our planet.