After reading this essay you will learn about India as a mega diversity nation.
India is known for its rich heritage of Biological diversity, having already documented over 91,000 species of animals and 45,500 species of plants in its 10 biogeographic regions. Nearly 6,500 native plants are still used prominently in indigenous healthcare systems.
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Thousands of locally adapted crop varieties grown traditionally since ancient times, and nearly 140 native breeds of farm livestock, continue to thrive in its diversified farming systems. The country is recognized as one of the eight Vavilovian centres of origin and diversity of crop plants, having more than 300 wild ancestors and close relatives of cultivated plants still growing and evolving under natural conditions.
Biodiversity is not distributed evenly across the globe. Certain countries, lying mostly in the tropics, are characterised by high species richness and more number of endemic species-called Mega diversity nations About 19 countries/Nations belongs to this category as on today.
India is one of them. India a mega diversity country with only 2.4% of the land area of the world, but accounts for 7.8% of the recorded species of the world.
The detailed biodiversity system of India is given in Tables 6.10 to 6.13:
