Genuine question. I was talking to someone recently and they asked me this and while I had some answers (mentioned below), I didn’t have confidence in my answers.
I know climate change is a threat to biodiversity and that it’s important to preserve it but I was never told why biodiversity is important. Is it to keep ecosystems in check (I feel like this is probably one of the most important reasons)? Is it to just give humans a bunch of species to look at and appreciate? Is it to ensure that if the human population died, some forms of life would remain that would be fit for whatever catastrophe affected human populations and keep life going?
Is it all of these things? Any other reasons?
Thank you!
In: Biology
High biodiversity equates to higher stable ecosystems. One way to think about it is having redundant systems. If I’m an insect eater, with 5 species I like to eat, and one does really poorly, I have 4 others I can predate on.
From a human-centric view, one of those 5 species of insect may produce a compound that cures a disease or provide a unique model for some new material.
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