I think that the divide between a scientific definition and a “societal” definition wouldn’t be each group having its own definition, but rather the scientific definition would include whatever information is pertinent to that study (i.e. including species richness and density), while the societal definition would simply be how many different kinds of organisms live in a certain area. The layperson wouldn’t typically need a complicated definition for their uses, and if they did, they could add on specifications that are needed as they see fit. Representing an entire ecosystem as a single “diversity” value is something that is hard to do, but is something that is necessary when comparing environments.
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