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Scientists need to classify as much biodiversity as possible.
© Joel Cracraft |
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The forest floor harbors much of the rain forest's diversity.
© Joel Cracraft |
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A Vital Undertaking: Nothing Less than Charting the Biosphere
Systematics is the science of the diversity of life, and biologists who specialize in this area are called systematists. They now face enormous and urgent tasks:
• To explore the natural worlds, whether in scuba gear or laboratory coats.
• To observe, count, and describe every species they see.
• To collect and preserve a representative sample of specimens.
In the process of collecting Earth's diversity, systematists gather a large amount of information about various species, including their location, gender, anatomy, genetic makeup, and ecology.
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