What is biodiversity?
Biodiversity refers to the variety of life on earth as a whole. It is what makes our natural world richly variable in different places and across the seasons. One way to measure biodiversity is to count the leaves (species) on the tree of life, but other measures are also commonly used. For example, 'phylogenetic diversity' measures evolutionary history - the branches of the tree of life instead of the leaves, 'genetic variability' captures the genetic differences between organisms, and 'functional diversity' measures the differences in how individual organisms function to make a living. It is increasingly recognised that biodiversity contributes substantially towards human well-being across the globe.
What can I do to help biodiversity?
One Tree One Planet highlights fifteen different challenges you can take as an individual to help preserve biodiversity, it explains how these help and gives advice on how you can successfully reduce your impact.
One Tree One Planet - connecting science and art
One Tree One Planet is a digital artwork celebrating the diversity of animals, plants and other organisms represented by the tree of life. It communicates the message that we're all related, provides interesting scientific facts about the tree of life, and encourages people to take 'challenges' to protect biodiversity.
How can I see One Tree One Planet?
The most powerful way to experience One Tree One Planet is at one of our public performances where dramatic flights through the tree of life will be projected onto the outsides of public buildings. See the One Tree One Planet website for announcements of upcoming events.
Don't worry if attending a performance isn't possible for you. You can still take part using the One Tree One Planet app, website, and you can explore the One Tree One Planet custom tree interactively here on OneZoom. The human leaf of the One Tree One Planet custom tree shows the faces of One Tree One Planet participants who are making a difference for biodiversity - you can be there too by loading the app and taking part in the challenges.
We're looking to put on more performances in new locations so please contact the One Tree One Planet team or the OneZoom team if you are interesting in hosting one.
Who is involved in the project?
One Tree One Planet is a collaboration between art and science. The artistic leader of the project was Naziha Mestaoui, a Paris-based environmental artist and architect, a pioneer of digital art whose work creates immersive and sensory experiences by blending space, imagery and technology. Naziha passed away on April 29, 2020, we are very sad to lose her inspirational character and her deep commitment to the project. The rest of the One Tree One Planet team are all committed to keeping the project running in memory of Naziha. We are sure that all her artistic creations will continue to have a great impact for many years to come.
The scientific team consisted of Douglas Soltis, Pamela Soltis, Robert Guralnick, Matt Gitzendanner, Yan Wong and James Rosindell. For more information see the One Tree One Planet website.
Use of the OneZoom tree of life visualisation engine
The One Tree One Planet project uses OneZoom software as its tree of life visualisation engine. The tree visualisations were customised to incorporate graphical designs and concepts from Naziha Mestaoui resulting in the final tree view seen as the core of One Tree One Planet. The tree view is hosted by OneZoom and can be explored interactively on the One Tree One Planet Apps or from our website. Screen casts from the tree view were used as components to produce the short films projected as part of One Tree One Planet performances.
All images used exclusively on this page are shown with permission from the One Tree One Planet team and credited to Naziha Mestaoui. They are licensed under a creative commons CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license so should not be reused for commercial purposes or adapted into derivative works, thank you.