Origin of the Term <i>Biodiversity</i>
Sahotra Sarkar
Abstract
In his recent interview with BioScience (Verdier 2021), John Burris repeated the well-known story that the term biodiversity was introduced in the late 1980s by Walter G. Rosen of the National Academy of Sciences. In the first book with biodiversity in its title (Wilson 1988), the editor, E. O. Wilson, indeed attributed the coinage of the term to Rosen (p. vi) at some time during the organization of a “National Forum on BioDiversity” in Washington, DC, from 21 to 24 September 1986. Rosen is supposed to have introduced the term only as a contraction of biological diversity in internal paperwork; however, he soon came to view the term as one that would help the cause of conservation with the general public (Wilson 1994). This story of the term's origin was elaborated by Takacs (1996); Rosen (1997) confirmed the story in a review of...