This guide is the first in a series of five articles written and produced by theblueplanetpost. It aims to help readers understand what biodiversity is, the role they play in ecosystems, common terms, and the benefits they bring to businesses and society. The following articles dive deeper into biodiversity loss, sustainable practices to help protect biodiversity, measuring biodiversity, and the regulatory landscape.
1. What's the key terminology?
Before going further, you should become familiar with some common terms that are used in the media, academia, and by businesses.
Nature: refers to the entire natural world around us, both living (animals, plants, forests) and non-living things, like the physical environment including water, climate, oceans, rivers, and atmosphere.
Biological diversity or biodiversity for short: refers just to the living component of nature. This includes all the living organisms (animals, plants, microorganisms, and fungi) and the ecosystems they live in (forests). Biodiversity also includes the diversity of genes within species, the variety of species within ecosystems, and the range of different ecosystems (forests, grasslands, oceans) found across the planet.
Ecosystem: is a specific part of nature, where communities of living organisms, such as plants, animals, and microorganisms interact with their physical environment. Ecosystems can be large (i.e. a tropical rainforest or ocean) or small (i.e. a pond).
Ecosystem services: refer to the direct and indirect benefits that humans derive from nature and ecosystems. The “services” include things like clean water, air purification, soil formation, climate regulation, pollination, food production, providing raw materials, and cultural and recreational services such as tourism.
Biosphere: is part of the Earth system where all living organisms exist on the Earth’s surface. It refers to all living organisms (i.e. plants, animals, and microorganisms) and the supporting environment, like air, water, and soil.
2. What is Biodiversity?
Let’s dive deeper into biodiversity. Biodiversity as a term might sound complicated, but if you strip out the jargon, it simply refers to the variety of life on Earth. It is a broad concept and refers to all the living components of nature. This includes the diversity of genes, species, and ecosystems:
- Genetic diversity refers to the variety of genes within a population of a particular species - for example, there are many different breeds of dogs such as German Shepherds, Great Danes, and Golden Retrievers.
- Species diversity refers to the number of different species within a given ecosystem or geographical area. For example, the Amazon rainforest contains a huge variety of species including monkeys, jaguars, toucans, and countless types of insects and plants.
- Ecosystem diversity on the other hand refers to the variety of habitats and ecosystems on the planet. For example, rainforests (Amazon), grasslands (Serengeti, Africa), deserts (Sahara), wetlands (Everglades, Florida), coral reefs (Great Barrier Reef, Australia), and tundra (Arctic). Some ecosystems have high diversity such as tropical rainforests, whereas others have low diversity such as polar ecosystems which have ice sheets.
In this guide, we are focused on the biosphere, which is part of the Earth's system. It’s useful to understand all the other Earth’s systems and how they interact with the biosphere so we’ll quickly switch topics here.
- Atmosphere: refers to the layer of gases that surround the Earth, including the air we breathe and the weather patterns that occur.
- Biosphere: refers to all living organisms and their interactions with their environment, including all plants, animals, and microorganisms.
- Hydrosphere: refers to all the water on Earth, including oceans, rivers, lakes, and groundwater.
- Geosphere: refers to everything below ground and the solid parts of Earth, which includes the rocks, minerals, and soil that make up the planet’s crust, mantle, and core.
Below are some examples of how the Biosphere influences all the other Earth systems:
- Atmosphere: the biosphere plays a critical role in regulating the composition of gases in the air we breathe, through a process called photosynthesis, where plants and algae produce oxygen and absorb carbon dioxide.
- Hydrosphere: Plants and trees play a critical role in regulating the flow of water, as they absorb water through their roots and release it into the air through their leaves.
- Geosphere: Plants and animals help break down rocks and soils through erosion and weathering. This also contributes to the formation of soil. The movement and growth of plants and animals also shape the land.
As these complex webs of interactions show, biodiversity is a fundamental characteristic of the biosphere and biodiversity is essential for ecosystems and the earth's cycles to function. These interactions are critical to understanding when learning about biodiversity.
3. Why is biodiversity important?
Let’s now explore why biodiversity is important and all the benefits for businesses and society as a whole. Biodiversity is the bedrock of human existence and supports everything in nature that we need to survive, from food to clean air and water.
It provides immense value for human well-being and the global economy, however, it’s extremely difficult to quantify the true value in monetary terms.
Benefits for businesses:
One of the ways that we can start understanding the value of biodiversity is to look at the concept of Ecosystem Services. Ecosystem services refer to the direct and indirect benefits that humans derive from nature and ecosystems. The “services” include things like clean water, air purification, soil formation, climate regulation, pollination, food production, providing raw materials and cultural and recreational services such as tourism.
Biodiversity provides many benefits to businesses, let’s look at 5:
- Provision of raw materials: Biodiversity provides a wide range of resources such as food, fuel, timber, and medicinal plants. These are critical to the operations of many industries, including agriculture, beauty, fashion, fishing, forestry, and pharmaceuticals.
- Ecosystem services: Biodiversity provides critical ecosystem services such as climate regulation, water regulation, soil health, and pollination which are essential for businesses to operate.
- Innovation: Nature and biodiversity provide inspiration for new technologies and innovations. For example, solar panels were developed based on research on how plants capture and transfer energy from the sun.
- Natural risk management: Biodiverse ecosystems tend to act as natural buffers to environmental changes and disturbances like climate change, natural disasters, and disease outbreaks. For example, mangroves act as a buffer against storm surges and high winds as the dense roots and trees absorb and dissipate the energy of waves, reducing the impact of storms on coastal communities, businesses, and infrastructure.
- Tourism: Ecotourism and wildlife tourism is possible because of biodiversity and ecosystem services and these industries provide huge economic benefits to businesses and local communities.
Benefits for society:
All the benefits covered above for businesses, also apply to society. However, there are a few more that are worth covering:
- Food security: Biodiversity is the foundation of agricultural systems and provides a wide range of food including crops, livestock, and fish.
- Education and research: Our understanding of nature, biodiversity, and its complex systems has provided many opportunities for education and scientific research.
- Mental health: Studies have shown that exposure to nature can reduce stress, anxiety, and depression and improve mental health and well-being. Engaging in environmental restoration projects also provides a sense of meaning and purpose, which also improves mental health.
- Recreation: Outdoor activities such as hiking, camping, birdwatching, scuba diving, and ecotourism are all opportunities born out of biodiverse ecosystems. These activities contribute not just to mental health, but also to local communities.
- Cultural and spiritual values: Biodiversity is deeply embedded within the cultures and traditions of many societies. For example, many indigenous cultures have developed extensive knowledge of nature through thousands of years of observation and experience. This knowledge has been passed down through generations through art, music, scriptures, and lifestyles.
There have been various attempts to put a monetary value on biodiversity and ecosystem services based on the value they provide to businesses and society. In 2019, the OECD published a report whereby ecosystem services were estimated to be worth 125 - 140 trillion USD (US dollars) per year! At the time, this was more than one and a half times the size of the global GDP. However, the general sentiment amongst scientists and economists is that the true value of biodiversity and ecosystem services is that it’s difficult to quantify in monetary terms. However, what we do know is that it goes way beyond all current estimates.
4. Examples of biodiversity in action
Let’s now look at examples of biodiversity in action. These examples will help showcase how intricately biodiversity works, and the impact they have on businesses and society.
Role of pollinators in ecosystems: Pollinators are animals, usually an insect or bird (like bees, butterflies, moths, birds, and bats) that moves pollen from the male parts of a flower to the female parts of the same or different flower. This process is called Pollination and it produces seeds and fruits which form the basis of many ecosystems and human food systems.
Pollinator diversity is important for maintaining the health and productivity of ecosystems, especially in agricultural systems. A diverse range of pollinators is critical because different pollinators prefer different flowers and methods of pollination. For example, bumblebees use the “buzz pollination” method. This means that they vibrate their wings at a certain frequency to release pollen from flowers, and this particular method is necessary for certain tomato plants which have pollen that is tightly attached to the flower, and vibration helps release the pollen. Other honeybees are not able to perform ‘buzz pollination’. Another example is the relationship between hummingbirds and certain types of flowers. Hummingbirds are attracted to brightly coloured flowers which have long narrow tubes. Only hummingbirds can use their beaks to reach the nectar inside these flowers, as bees due to their size are not able to reach the nectar.
Role of keystone species in ecosystems: keystone species is a species that plays a critical role in maintaining the structure and function of an ecosystem. Removing these keystone species usually leads to significant changes in the ecosystem, including the collapse of the ecosystem. One example is the sea otter in kelp forest ecosystems. Sea otters as the predator keeps the population of sea urchins in check. Otters feed on sea urchins, which in turn graze on kelp. Without sea otters, the sea urchin population will explode and they will overgraze the kelp leading to the collapse of the kelp forest ecosystem. So sea otters are important as keystone species to the kelp forest ecosystem.
The most important takeaway from this guide should be that there is a specific purpose for every living organism on earth and biodiversity is critical for ecosystems to thrive. Biodiversity and ecosystems are essential for human survival.