Biodiversity

What is biodiversity?
The biotic variation of organisms within a defined space, usually used to define and measure the status of that region including the array of kingdoms and classes of species.

Biodiversity is the differences in living organisms (biotic factors) from both terrestrial and marine environments. It also refers to the population of species and the genetic variations that play a role in the complex web of effects in an ecosystem.

The quantity and variety of differing plant and animal life present within a specific natural environment.

The richness and variety of organisms in any given ecosystem or habitat on earth This includes variety among more specific species.

Why is biodiversity important?
Biodiversity holds the whole world together, in a literal sense. It's almost like a math equation: each factor is a variable and effects the outcome. If you were to take away one variable or subtract/decrease a variable, the outcome would be different. For example, if a forest (f) has lost 20,000 trees (t) then other factors like floods (n) would come into play (trees act as a natural barrier against such disasters). So you equation would read: f-t=n=h-d (h represents humans and d equals those who have died). It used to read f+t=1/2n=h-sd (s representing small amount dead). Only the real equation is far more complex, but the point is, one effect creates another. You could think of it like a domino effect, if one domino wobbles, it may not fall but it could hit another domino that does fall setting off a chain of events.

How does the location of a sanctuary affect its long-term outlook?
Remember, it's all about location, location, location. If you placed an animal sanctuary in a dump, well, that's not serving much of a purpose. If you place an animal sanctuary in a place that was recently a dump, animals may have adapted and learned to stay away from there. If you place a sanctuary at the base of a volcano and it blows up, well, that wasn't the smartest move, now was it? But if you place a sanctuary in an environmental heaven where animals have been coming, you are in a good spot. you can also attract other species to the sanctuary since it's so perfect.


What are ways in which preserving biodiversity locally might have a global effect?
By preserving species in you land, can save them in others, too. If you are providing a home for migratory birds, you are saving them here (as well as the animals that depend upon them as food--predators--or to keep other species from over population by eating them--prey--then that will effect the environment you are protecting as well as the one the birds will fly to. And if you are protecting 100,000 acres of forest, that's 100,000 acres not being used to pollute.

How do habitat destruction and loss of species effect more than just one area?
There's that migratory animal thing I mentioned before. But if you have those 100,000 acres of forest again, and it's all cut down, those trees were serving as more than just to not pollute there, they soaking up CO2 that isn't polluting the Earth. Every animal and plant has a certain niche it plays, but if an animal or plant is suddenly lost, then that niche they held crumbles and so does other organisms that depended on it. If one ecosystem collapses, so does the next ecosystem that had a link to it (a bird that ate that migratory bug but that bug is gone and so the next ecosystem goes because that bird population is dying because it lost a major food source) and on and on until there is nothing left. From what I've read, that's my prediction, at least.

How does preserving biodiversity enhance the life of people?
The point of the medicine document we read pointed out how there is so many different types of life out there and have so many unexplored options that if we aren't protecting that species and it goes extinct, we could have just lost the cure for the common cold. The best cure is nature if we just learn to explore it. The possibilities are endless . . . unless we are the ones ending it, of course.