The biodiversity of our planet is something we benefit from every single day, whether we realize it or not! Our health and the wellbeing of our global economy all depend on the rich and diverse ecosystem services that the biosphere provides for us. For example, we get fuel, food, and water from ecosystems! When biodiversity is loss, it diminishes the quality of these ecosystem services. In turn, it also harms jobs, local migration, and can even lead to political conflicts (if, for example, people’s crops don’t grow and civil unrest spreads).
In addition, the extensive amounts of flora and fauna hold many secrets still about possible cures to illness and other unknown health benefits. To destroy and loose these species forever means we lose this untapped knowledge.
Biodiversity also aids in our food production, soil health, and the resources used to harvest livestock and marine species. The loss of these species would make each and every one of our food sources more vulnerable to detrimental changes.
The protection of this diversity is especially important in the face of the Coronavirus because a loss in biodiversity can lead to a rise in infectious diseases. It reduces the abundance of species that eat the ones who can spread diseases to us.
In the long term, a loss of biodiversity due to climate change can result in the entire upheaval of human settlements as food and other essential resources become harder to attain.
A food web is a system of interlocking and interdependent food chains. Here is an example of one:
