Biodiversity

Yves Lumbang

What is Biodiversity?
The variety of life on Earth, its biological diversity is commonly referred
to as biodiversity.
The number of species of plants, animals, and microorganisms, the
enormous diversity of genes in these species, the different ecosystems
on the planet, such as deserts, rainforests and coral reefs are all part of
a biologically diverse Earth.

Why is Biodiversity Important?

Biodiversity boosts ecosystem productivity where each species, no
matter how small, all have an important role to play.
For example,
A larger number of plant species means a greater variety of crops
Greater species diversity ensures natural sustainability for all life forms
Healthy ecosystems can better withstand and recover from a variety of
disasters.
And so, while we dominate this planet, we still need to preserve the
diversity in wildlife.

A healthy biodiversity
offers many natural
services

Species depend on each other

While there might be survival of the fittest within a
given species, each species depends on the services
provided by other species to ensure survival. It is a
type of cooperation based on mutual survival and is
often what a balanced ecosystem refers to.

Soil, bacteria, plants; the Nitrogen Cycle

The relationship between soil, plants, bacteria and other life is also
referred to as the nitrogen cycle:

Interdependent marine ecosystem

An example from the seas (originally mentioned here years ago but
removed because the link to the story no longer worked), was described
by National Geographic Wild in a program called, A Life Among Whales
(broadcast June 14, 2008).
It noted how a few decades ago, some fishermen campaigned for killing
whales because they were threatening the fish supply and thus jobs.

Large carnivores essential for healthy

ecosystems
Three quarters of the worlds big carnivores are in decline. A study in
the journal Science, notes that these large animals such as lions,
leopards, wolves and bears are in decline, due to declining habitats
and persecution by humans..
This also has a negative impact on the environment, perhaps partly
formed by outdated-views that predators are harmful for other wildlife.
As the study notes, human actions cannot fully replace the role of large
carnivores because these large carnivores are an intrinsic part of an
ecosystems biodiversity.

Interdependency vs Human Intervention

Nature can often be surprisingly resilient, often without the need for
human interventions. For example, a documentary aired on the BBC (I
unfortunately forget the name and date, but in the 1990s) described
two national parks in Africa where elephant populations had grown quite
large within those artificial boundaries. The usual way to deal with this
was to cull the population to try and keep the ecosystem in balance.
Without this, elephants were stripping vegetation bare, affecting other
animals, too.

Biodiversity providing lessons for scientists

in engineering
For a number of years now, scientists have been looking more and more
at nature to see how various species work, produce, consume
resources, trying to mimic the amazing feats that millions of years of
evolution has produced.
As just one small example, some spiders can produce their silk with a
higher tensile strength than many alloys of steel even though it is made
of proteins. So biologists are looking at these processes in more depth
to see if they can reproduce or enhance such capabilities.

More important than human use or

biological interest
Many people may support environmental causes to help preserve the
beauty of Nature. However, that is in a strange way, not really a
justifiable excuse as it is a subjective, human or anthropomorphasized
view.
For many decades, various environmentalists, biologists and other
scientists, have viewed the entire earth as a massive living organism or
system due to the interdependent nature of all species within it. Some
cultures have recognized this kind of inter-relationship for a very long
time. Some have termed this Gaia.

Putting an economic value on biodiversity

It was noted earlier that ecosystems provide many services to us, for
free.
Although some dislike the thought of trying to put an economic value on
biodiversity (some things are just priceless), there have been attempts
to do so in order for people to understand the magnitude of the issue:
how important the environment is to humanity and what costs and
benefits there can be in doing (or not doing) something.