For Immediate Release Contact: Pat Kremer/Nancy O’Shea (312) 665-7100 (For Media Use Only) THE YEAR OF BIODIVERSITY AND CONSERVATION Highlighting the Global Research of Field Museum Scientists and Increasing Awareness of Biodiversity Chicago – For more than a century, scientists from The Field Museum have traveled to remote parts of the world and pored over specimens, from bird wings to plant fossils, to learn about the biological diversity of life on Earth. Much of this research has focused on describing extinct and living plants and animals, of which some 1.7 million species are known to exist on our planet. Today, biodiversity research has taken on a new urgency. Unique species, from medicinal plants in China to butterflies in Illinois, are disappearing at an alarming rate around the world. The loss of biodiversity is a loss for humans: Biodiversity keeps the air and water clean, regulates our climate, and provides us with food, shelter, clothing, medicine, and other useful products. Even more troubling, only a fraction of the Earth’s species are known to science. Every year, scientists are discovering new species in the wild and through a variety of traditional and novel research techniques using natural history museum collections. “We are facing the next great wave of extinctions,” says John Bates, Ph.D., Curator of Birds in the Department of Zoology. “If we don’t understand what is out there, how can we conserve it for the future?” Continue