Is Biodiversity Important?
Yes it is important
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No, it is not important.
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Well, I'm not a scientist or biologist, but it still seems logical to me that if life is easy to snuff out (and oh yes it is, through oh so many ways) then the best chance for life to survive is to have as many different forms of it as possible. And for those of you who want to take the religious angle on this, hey, why do you suppose Noah had to take two of every kind of animal on the ark instead of just two of the kinds people would need domesticated? Even in the Bible stories biodiversity was important. Side: Yes it is important
"Well, I'm not a scientist or biologist, but it still seems logical to me that if life is easy to snuff out (and oh yes it is, through oh so many ways) then the best chance for life to survive is to have as many different forms of it as possible." We can see now Diaper Boy why PPH is pushing you Progressives to illegal immigration your party needs to replace the voter base you are throwing in dumpsters. Are you going to thank Margret Sanger for that ? Side: No, it is not important.
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Well, I'm not a scientist or biologist, but it still seems logical to me that if life is easy to snuff out (and oh yes it is, through oh so many ways) then the best chance for life to survive is to have as many different forms of it as possible. Have you ever heard of a tardigrade? Possibly the most durable critter, on the planet or off. Sure, some individual species are easy to kill off, but life as a whole is insanely difficult to snuff out. Over 99% of species that have ever been on earth are extinct, yet after multiple mass extinctions there is still life abundant. You are correct about the function of biodiversity, but biodiversity is not intrinsically important, nor is it something that needs to be preserved. Never-ending biodiversity has no function. Moreover, what mass extinctions do is make room for more diversity over time. We get so caught up in the preservation of the more complex animals, as if critters only matter if they have eyes, or only four appendages. Nobody would ever mourn the loss of pasteurella pestis The minimum number is 35,000 species of bacteria There are over 100,000 identified species of fungus. There are over 65,000 species of Protista, and estimates go as high as 200,000. There are over 1,000,000 species of insect. There are over 320,000 species of mollusks, arachnids, and other invertebrates. There are over 320,000 species of plant. Yet people freak out about losing any one of the 31,000 species of fish, the 10,000 species of birds, the 9,000 species of reptiles, the 6,400 species of amphibian, the 5,500 species of mammal. There are more species of protists than all the mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish put together. People get too worried about preservation of particular species in the name of biodiversity, but these folks just are not thinking about the big picture. 3 billion years of natural selection cannot possibly be wrong. Remember, ALL species that go extinct are unfit species. It is silly to worry the possible extinction of the giant panda (a carnivore which refuses to eat meat, will only eat one type of plant, and is picky about whether it will breed.) Either it is able to adapt and survive, or it is doomed, with or without our tears. It is not sensible to be concerned with the continuation of any unfit species, because ultimately all species will go extinct. Face it, nobody mourns the trilobite. Side: Yes it is important
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Biodiversity is not an intrinsic good, but it does serve a useful function. We tend to think of various species as things to be preserved, no matter what. This attitude makes biodiversity irrelevant, because the function of biodiversity is to maintain ecological homeostasis when some species go extinct. For example, there is some biodiversity of large predators in the Serengeti, (lions, leopards, cheetahs, hyenas, crocodiles) but their prey overlap. These predators trim the herds the mid-sized herbivores (zebra, antelope, gazelles, wildebeest, hartebeest, impala, etc.) Were one of these to go extinct, the others would continue to fulfill the extinct predator's function of trimming the herds to fit the range. The same works with biodiversity of plants. The hemlock woolly adelgid is an insect that is invading the Appalachia mountains and killing most of the hemlock trees. This is not a disaster because there are other trees, such as species of spruce, that fill the same niche in the food web as the hemlocks, and provide similar habitats for birds, mammals, and insects. Were the hemlock to go extinct, the spruces would merely take over the functions the hemlock used to fill. Biodiversity helps to maintain environmental equilibrium when species go extinct. The inevitability of extinction is precisely why biodiversity matters. Side: No, it is not important.
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