Biodiversity is a lively issue these days, mainly because of the number of species that are going extinct, either by natural causes, or because we space-hungry humans are destroying their habitats. Wilson extinct estimates that perhaps 17, 500 species (mostly insects) go extinct each year in tropical forests, and that we humans have accelerated the historical rate of extinction by a factor of one thousand to ten thousand. Biologists and conservationists are concerned that vast numbers of species may be forced into extinction ahead of schedule(extinction is the ultimate fate of all species) before they can be found and classified. There is concern, too, that in our ignorance we may be destroying species vital to the fabric of ecosystems on which we depend for our own survival.翻译成中文

近年来，生物多样性已成为一个热门话题，主要是因为大量物种面临着灭绝的危机，其中有自然的原因，也有由于我们对空间的需求而破坏它们栖息地的人类原因。威尔逊灭绝估计，每年可能有17500种物种（主要是昆虫）灭绝在热带森林，我们人类加速了历史上物种灭绝的速度，也就是说，我们人类将历史上的灭绝速度提高了1000倍到10000倍。生物学家和环保人士担心，许多物种可能会在未能被发现和分类之前进入灭绝的轨道（灭绝是所有物种的最终命运）。也有人担心，由于我们的无知，我们可能会破坏对我们自身生存至关重要的生态系统结构中的某些物种。