Maps by NIVA (Hege Gundersen). In the IPBES context, the word "nature" covers the full diversity of life: The living organisms including humans, along with their interactions with each other and their environment. Biodiversity, short for biological diversity, involves variation in life at all levels of organization and includes variability in ecosystems and their functions, in species richness and their functional properties, in genetic diversity and in biotic interactions (Fig.