"Biodiversity" is a sacred word among environmental advocates, often for aesthetic rather than scientific reasons. To many, there is something intrinsically beautiful and right-seeming about a landscape in which a wide range of species occupy a diversity of ecological niches. The greater the variety of species and relationships between them in a place, the richer and more beautiful the place. To lose species and their roles in the landscape represents to many environmentalists an unquantifiable diminution of its beauty or an interruption of an organic harmony--like painting over a few burghers in "Night Watch,", say. Theodore Rooselvelt famously likened the loss of a species to the loss of one of the works of Shakespeare.
I'm sympathetic to this view. Oh hell, I share it.
But recently some University of Michigan researchers found biodiversity can pay off in ways even ardent anti-environmentalists can appreciate:
Genetic diversity within a species can increase the
yield of commercial crops. Diversity of tree species increases
production on timber plantations. More fish species mean more stable
yields for fishermen.
Diversity in the types of plants that grow
together also can make the plants more resistant to disease and invasive
species, and in some cases make them pull more carbon dioxide out of
the atmosphere.
More on their findings here.
Maybe an ardent anti-environmentalist wouldn't appreciate the carbon-reducing function of biodiversity ("Anthropogenic climate change is a myth!" he brays...), but if as many suspect we are facing a future of escalating demand for ever scarcer natural resources and food supplies are increasingly threatened, maybe keeping around as many life forms as we can is more than just a pleasant notion.
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