4 Key Benefits of Biodiversity

This article throws light on the four key benefits of biodiversity.

The four key benefits are: (1) Biodiversity Provides the Natural Resource, (2) Biodiversity Provides the Genetic Resource, (3) Biodiversity Maintains a Stable Ecosystem, and (4) Biodiversity Ensures Optimum Utilization and Conservation of Abiotic Resources in an Ecosystem.

Benefit # (1) Biodiversity Provides the Natural Resource:

Plants and animals have been exploited by man since time immemorial for food, clothing, shelter and a number of useful products.

Man has domesticated a number of such economically important plants and animal species. At the same time a large number of useful products also come from wild plants and animals.

The most important contribution of plants is to provide food to ever increasing human population. Of the 300,000 flowering plant species, 75,000 are edible but to date only about 3,000 are regarded as source of food. Of these, around 200 plant species have been domesticated with 15-20 constituting crops of major economic value. Plants have several uses but only the most important ones are mentioned here.

Many species of plants are used as fodder. They are either used directly from the wild, as in pastures and rangelands, or domesticated. Grasses and legumes are the most important fodder sources.

Wood, the source of timber, is one of the most utilized commercial plant products throughout the world. Plants, which provide wood, are predominantly harvested from the wild. At the same time monoculture plantations under agro- and social-forestry programmes are increasingly being raised as a source of timber. Wild sources of timber, especially from hardwoods, are predominantly tropical.

Plants are very important in health care. In developing countries, many people still rely on traditional medicines obtained from local plants. Some 200 chemicals extracted in pure form from about 90 plant species are used in medicine throughout the world. About half of the world’s medicinal compounds are still derived from plant sources. Many of these chemicals cannot be synthesized. Therefore, medicinal plants are of great significance to both developed and developing countries.

A number of species like cotton, linen, jute, sisal, hemp, and coconut yield fibres of great value for cloth and other industrial purposes. Plants are very efficient sources of renewable energy. Plants offer a good source of fuel, either as wood or its transformed product, charcoal. Plant biomass from any source can also be converted into fuel. Natural rubber, latex, gums, resins, dyes, essential oils and beverages are some of the other products of commercial value obtained from plants.

Microbes are of immense importance in the pharmaceutical industry. Their capacity to ferment various substrates has led to the production of a number of clinically and otherwise important antibiotics. Microbes are also good sources of various medicinally important enzymes (streptokinase and asparginase), toxins (botulin), immunomodulators (Cyclosporin A) etc. Vaccines such as BCG, typhoid, hepatitis B, and alkaloids such as ergot are also derived from some microbes. Single cell protein, microbicides, pesticides, insecticides, flavouring agents, alcohol, acetone, butanol, glycerol and certain organic acids such as citric acid, fumaric, acetic and lactic, are also derived from the activity of microbes.

Several microorganisms (Bacteria and Cyanobacteria) are highly useful in the agriculture industry, either as bio-fertilizers due to their capacity to fix atmospheric nitrogen or in phosphate solubilization. Other important roles of microorganisms include biomining, bioremediation, biosorption, biogass production, harnessing solar energy etc.

Benefit # (2) Biodiversity Provides the Genetic Resource:

Drastic global climatic changes may cause large-scale shifts in natural vegetation and agricultural crops. Hence there is urgent need to protect genetic resources of food plants to maintain crop productivity in different climatic conditions. There are several species of useful plants in the tropics alone that could be used as an alternative source. Their uses could be extended from emergency sustenance in isolated locations or disaster areas to fully exploitable alternative sources of food.

There are many instances when useful genes in wild species or in old traditional varieties were used to improve the strains we cultivate today. It was from a wild melon growing in U.P., India, that genes for resistance to powdery mildew were obtained to be introduced in crops of musk melon grown in California.

The kans grass, Saccharum spontaneum, from Indonesia has provided genes for resistance to red rot disease of sugar cane. A wild variety of rice collected from U.P., India, in 1963, saved about 30 million hectares of paddy from Grassy stunt virus.

Nearly 20 cultivars of rice grown in rice growing countries of the world contain useful genes from wild varieties of Kerala, India. Fungus blighted leaves of corn grown in plains of the USA, caused as much as 50% damage in some regions. Resistant genes from Mexican varieties imparted blight resistance to halt the damage. Old traditional varieties and the wild relatives of domesticated plants and animals constitute a vital genetic resource for us. Under the circumstances we should have a collection of gene-pool as large as possible. It is only from this gene pool that we can synthesize the cultivars of future.

Benefit # (3) Biodiversity Maintains a Stable Ecosystem:

In an ecosystem all the components are related to one another and it occurs in a state of dynamic equilibrium. This system of checks and balances is of fundamental importance in an ecosystem which is maintained in a functional state by the activity of a large number of organisms.

So in a complicated ecosystem with several trophic levels, each of which is composed of several species, elimination of single species does not create any problem. There are several species or alternatives which can take over and keep the system in a functional state. But in a simple system loss of a single or a few species could be catastrophic because of lack of alternatives. Thus diversity imparts stability to an ecosystem.

Each species in the complex biosphere has its own importance. Earthworms killed by pesticides do not aerate our soils. Mangroves, destroyed to supply firewood, have stopped protecting our coastline from erosion. At one time oysters were so numerous in Chespeak Bay, USA, that they could filter the entire water in just three days.

It takes about a year to filter the water now as oyster population has declined by 99%. This has caused the water of Chespeak Bay to be increasingly muddied and oxygen deficient. An adult frog can consume insects equal to its own weight in a day. Diminishing frog population has been associated with increased rate of pest damage to crops and recurrence of malaria in India.

Benefit # (4) Biodiversity Ensures Optimum Utilization and Conservation of Abiotic Resources in an Ecosystem:

Tropical regions are having the richest biodiversity in the world, most of the nutrients are lodged in its biotic community. Due to warm and humid conditions decomposition of organic matter and regeneration of nutrients take place rapidly. A wide variety of plants which include trees, herbs, shrubs, grasses and climbers quickly absorb all the nutrients which are made available to them as a result of mineralization.

The rich biodiversity in the tropics is sustained largely by recycled nutrients. In ecosystem of low biodiversity, the uptake of nutrient is not so efficient. The minerals remain in the soil while organic matter lies on the forest floor.

As most of the minerals are used by the biotic community of an ecosystem the nutrient loss is prevented. Mineral nutrients are not lost to the flowing waters, rains and floods which are frequent in the tropics. Luxuriant growth of vegetation hinders rapid flow of water, binds soil particles together and prevents soil erosion. Loss of biodiversity reduces the efficiency of this vital machinery which in turn results in rapid losses of nutrients and degradation of soil.