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
Diversity brings strength. In plants, having a “monocrop” is extremely dangerous. Example #1 of this is the Irish potato famine. GMOs are bad because they lead to monocrops and while they aren’t susceptible to disease, heirloom varieties have different minerals and nutrients- they also support other animal/insect species. A keystone species is one where if they disappear, many many others follow. Think of it like bolts on a plane- if they keep falling off eventually the plane will crash. Diversity in animals is important because genetically we need variety to be strong. Think of dogs. Pure breeds suffer from many diseases and have weird personalities a lot of time due to inbreeding– the mut you get at the pound is likely to live long and have good genes.
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