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By Jeremy Malczyk, Michelle Duong, Ajay Ranipeta, Chris Heltne, Walter Jetz of Map of Life, Yale University, and the E.O. Wilson Biodiversity Foundation Half-Earth Project This article originally in Medium, July 30, 2018 The Significance of Biodiversity Narrow-billed Tody, Todus angustirostris. Photo by Julie Hart. Biodiversity is the variety of life on Earth, the building blocks of functioning ec

Human pressures on the natural world come in many forms. Top among these pressures are large-scale human development projects that impose barriers on species movement. For example, physical barriers can dissuade animals from accessing food, water, mates, and other critical resources. These barriers can block annual or seasonal migration and dispersal routes. Fragmented populations may suffer from

This article appeared online in Cosmos Magazine on June 11, 2018. Edward O. Wilson was born on June 10, 1929, in Birmingham, Alabama, in the US south. At age seven he went to live with a family in Florida. An entry in the Encyclopedia of Alabama recounts an incident during this period that had a lasting effect on him. An accident while fishing damaged his right eye, resulting in per