11.7 Reasons for Maintaining Biodiversity Flashcards
What are the three groups identified for reasons for maintaining biodiversity?
Aesthetic reasons, Economic reasons, Ecological reasons
What are the aesthetic reasons for maintaining biodiversity?
-Humans find joy and pleasure in the beauty of nature, attractive landscapes provide enjoyment
-The more diversity in the area the more visitors the area is likely to attract
-Provides inspiration for people such as musicians and writers
-Studies have found that people recover more rapidly from stress and injury when they are supported by plants and natural environment
What are the economic reasons for maintaining biodiversity?
-Soil erosion and desertification may occur as a result of deforestation, this reduces the country ability to grow crops and feed its people, can lead to resource and economic dependence on other countries
-Areas rich in biodiversity provide a pleasing environment, high biodiversity areas can promote tourism which provides economic advantage
-Ecosystems have a lot of economic value
-Many of the medicines used today have originated from plants, fungi, bacteria
-Ecosystems can have a major contribution to the field of science and technology eg. specific enzyme in DNA sequencing was first discovered in bacterial found in Yellowstone National Park, USA
-High biodiversity provides protection against abiotic stress and disease. If biodiversity is not maintained a change in conditions can destroy entire crops
-Continuous monoculture results in soil depletion because the nutrients required by the crop are gradually used up, this results in economic cots like increased spending on fertilisers and decreased yields
What are the ecological reasons for maintaining biodiversity?
-All organisms are interdependent, so depend on each other for survival, the removal of one species may have a significant effect on another, like a disruption in the food chain or disruption of nutrient cycles
-Some species play a role in maintaining the structure of an ecosystem, these are called keystone species
-To maintain genetic resources which provide us with a variety of everyday products like food, drink, drugs, fields, clothing, this is important to the global economy
-Genetic resources also allow us to adapt to changes in the environment
eg. climate change means that some crops wont be able to grow in the same area as they do now. But we may be able to use genes form a plant that’s resistant to droughts to genetically engineer drought-resistant crops
What is soil depletion and the economic reasons to reduce it?
-Monoculture is growing a single variety of a single crop
-Continuous monoculture involves planting the same crop in the same field without interruption
-Continuous monoculture results in soil depletion because the nutrients required by the crop are gradually used up
-This results in economic cots like increased spending on fertilisers and decreased yields
Definition of keystone species
Species which are essential for maintaining biodiversity and have a disproportionately large effect on their environment relative to their abundance
