Biodiversity is life on Earth. This one word describes the variety of all living things - plants, animals and microbes - and all the places where they are found.

This variety provides us with our needs - food, medicine, fuel, clean air and water. But it also brings us things we don’t want - superbugs that are resistant to conventional antibiotics, invading alien plants and potential new killers like bird flu.

Is all biodiversity equally important, or is something that has occurred in nature inherently more valuable? Should we worry about species extinctions, whether natural or our fault? Or should we just worry about conserving and creating variation we can use? Should we be able to create diversity for our own use, or is that unethical? Do we understand enough about biodiversity - its challenges and opportunities?

“Biodiversity - what on earth is it?” is a special exhibition in Explore that describes some of the science behind biodiversity - where it is, why it’s there, how we measure it, and what happens when we destroy it.

Designed and funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC).