HOW CAN GEODIVERSITY RESEARCH HELP IN PRESERVING BIODIVERSITY

Featured image: Geodiversityday.org

Relevance of Geodiversity

Geodiversity is the abiotic diversity of Earth, i.e. the variety of ​​minerals, rocks, fossils, soils, sediments, landforms, topography and hydrological features such as rivers and lakes. It is a part of human's lives as it is geodiversity which empowers progress and technological revolutions, provides raw materials and energy sources and far more.

Natural heritage includes both biodiversity and geodiversity. Geodiversity is a relatively young term in environmental studies. It was introduced for the first time in 1993 as the geological alternative for biodiversity. However, until recently researchers and policy-makers tended to prioritise biodiversity over geodiversity.

Loss of geodiversity has been also disregarded in the political discourse and international agreements. On the global level, one of the main contributors to its preservation has been UNESCO. Its three main mechanisms include the World Heritage Convention, the Global Geoparks Network and the International Geodiversity Day, introduced in 2020 and held for the first time on October 6, 2022.

Regardless of scarce attention to its importance, geodiversity has proven to have a big potential for advancing biodiversity research. For example, the first national park in the world, Yellowstone National Park, was created to preserve geothermal springs. A century later, it allowed to discover Thermus aquaticus, a bacterium that contains a thermostable enzyme used to amplify DNA segments and is, thus, the foundation of modern gene technology. Therefore, recent growing interest in geodiversity might open up new opportunities for biodiversity conservation. 

Featured image: Yellowstone National Park, Smithsonian Magazine

Geodiversity and Biodiversity Assessment: Direct Connection 

It is widely accepted that topographical and climatic conditions define diversity of biological species to thrive, and academia has well studied the impact of individual geological factors on biodiversity. However, there is a need for empirical research testing geodiversity in relation to biodiversity to get a holistic approach to the issue. 

Another important dimension is assessment research. Measuring biodiversity and geodiversity are crucial elements for understanding the current state of ecosystems and progress on its conservation. Currently the literature suggests various approaches to measuring bio- and geodiversity. It can describe elements and be qualitative; use indexes presenting a quantitative approach; or combine both in qualitative-quantitative studies. The most widely accepted is the quantitative one that evaluates diversity richness – the number of features in one unit. 

Biodiversity assessment has been more prioritised on the global scale: in the 1990s UNEP initiated the Global Biodiversity Assessment that presented results of work of 300 authors from 30 countries. However, biodiversity assessment methods do not include the term geodiversity as a whole and focus only on separate geological features, mostly topographical data. Inclusion of geodiversity as one concept might help in getting a more comprehensive image and modelling biodiversity in the absence of data on some species. 

In turn, geodiversity assessment methods also disregard biodiversity elements. The problem of assessing geodiversity is the lack of a commonly accepted definition, as not all the scholars agree to accept it as an equivalent for biodiversity in geology. Establishing the definition might help in improving measuring approaches, as well as build a foundation for interdisciplinary approach.

An integrated approach towards assessing biodiversity and geodiversity has a big potential for contributing to nature conservation. Firstly, it might help in managing nature conservation policies in terms of setting priorities and assessing the progress on reaching goals. Secondly, a common stance on it would advance statistical models and contribute to academic research. Thirdly, it would result in improved collaboration between biologists and geoscientists and help them to unite efforts in preserving natural heritage.

Featured image: David Doubilet, National Geographic Image Collection

Research Prospects 

The most recent papers discussing the state of the research including biodiversity and geodiversity assessment outline the following tracks for future research. One of them is expanding research on positive relationships between geodiversity and biodiversity on global and local scales to understand how they vary. It might also contribute to the literature stating that this link is not positive in 100% cases, meaning some high geodiversity areas harbour low biodiversity areas.

Scholars can also contribute to nature conservation by examining if geodiversity can work as a buffer against global warming-related changes. Another direction of prospective research might be proving that the impact of geodiversity on preserving human health and well-being is as important as of biodiversity.

Some researchers propose using one combined concept omnidiversity to embrace both biodiversity and geodiversity assessment, which might also constitute another track of prospective research.

To sum up, an interdisciplinary approach combining biodiversity and geodiversity research might significantly contribute to nature conservation. And accurate data collection remains a basis for advancing and integrating geodiversity and biodiversity studies. Therefore, projects that develop and apply innovative data collection tools are getting more important. For the European region, one of them is Nature FIRST which combines ecology sciences and environmental forensics with environmental observations. Sign up for our newsletter to learn more about how we develop predictive, proactive, and preventative capabilities for nature conservation.