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nWhatnis “biological diversity”? And why should we care about it?
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nWell,nit means the rich variety of animals, plants, and other livingnthings. We humans have described about 1.4 million species of livingnthings. That sounds like a lot, doesn’t it? But there are probablynmany, many more kinds of species that we haven’t yet discovered ornidentified. Experts guess that there might be ten million speciesnaltogether…
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nButnthat’s just a guess.
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nMorenthan a thousand beetles in 19 trees in Panama! And that’s aside fromnall the other insects, spiders, and other arthropods; all the birds,nmammals, amphibians, reptiles, mollusks, and other animals. And allnthe flowers, ferns, mosses, and other plants; all the mushrooms andnother fungi; and all the amoebas and bacteria! And all the otherntrees in the rainforest, and all the other ecosystems on Earth!
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n(Pant,npant!)
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nObviously,nnot all environments are as rich in biodiversity as a rainforest, andnjust as obviously, we don’t want to wholesale kill everything on thenplanet just so we can count species! But that Panama study hints thatnwe don’t know nearly all of the creatures that we share the Earthnwith.
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nOkay,nwhy is biological diversity important?
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nWhennwe accidentally destroy habitats (by, say, introducing a kind ofngrass we humans like to walk and play on—but then that grass takesnover and native plants die out) or when we purposefully eliminatenhabitats (by, for example, clearing forest so we can plant crops), wenreduce biodiversity. I’m sure you’ve heard that many creatures suchnas the African elephant and the giant panda are endangered—but ofncourse there are many much-smaller creatures, less-glamorous plants,nand other important but little-known organisms that become endangerednor even extinct when habitats are changed or destroyed. n
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nUnfortunately,nwhen we lose a few organisms, we often lose many more—becausenanimals and plants and other living things are linked together innfood webs and other kinds of interdependence. That’s sad for thencreatures, themselves, but it’s also sad for humans: When we losenorganisms, we may lose food sources. We often lose beauty. We maynchange the weather in unpredictable and usually uncomfortable ways.nWe lose potential sources of new medicines and cures. n
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nWenlose a lot.
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nExplorensome more…
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nChecknout the video on the Explore Biodiversity website. Then find out whatnyou can do to help preserve biological diversity.
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nAlsonon this date:
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nArtist Mary Cassatt’s birthday
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nNational Maritime Day
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