PAPUA NEW GUINEA COUNTRY STUDY ON BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY

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PNG Biological Diversity

Papua New Guinea probably harbours more than five percent of the world's biodiversity within some of the world's most biologically diverse ecosystems. Many of these organisms are endemic; that is, they are found only in Papua New Guinea or on the island of New Guinea. This chapter reviews the status of knowledge of Papua New Guinea's biodiversity from a taxonomic perspective, for example, by group of organism. Chapter 7 reviews the extraordinary range of environments which exist in Papua New Guinea. Many of the same processes that have promoted the evolution and maintenance of Papua New Guinea's biodiversity have also provided the diversity of habitats that we see today, so there is some overlap between Chapters 6 and 7.