DIVERSITAS: An Integrated Program of Biodiversity Science

Summary: In 1989, the National Research Council’s U.S. National Committee for the International Union of Biological Sciences (USNC/IUBS) proposed that the IUBS launch an international cooperative research program on biological diversity. The committee suggested three guiding objectives: -identify scientific issues that require international cooperation on the role of biodiversity in ecosystem function; -address general questions about the knowledge of how species and ecosystem diversity can contribute to global ecology; and -investigate how species diversity contributes to system functioning. DIVERSITAS was launched in 1991 by the IUBS, the Scientific Committee on Problems of the Environment (SCOPE), and UNESCO’s Man and the Biosphere program. In 1996 it gained additional sponsorship by ICSU and the International Union of Microbiological Societies (IUMS). A partnership with the Convention on Biological Diversity was initiated in 1996 where DIVERSITAS became the official scientific body that provides input on the status global trends of biological diversity.