Importance Of Biodiversity In Agriculture

Throughout this composition I intend to shed light onto the present day agricultural practices and the key natural components of this planet that support life and sustain biodiversity.

Biodiversity creates an interconnected system where each part builds off of one another to create a functional ecosystem. For example, a small insect such as a bee is critical for survival of many other species because it pollinates so many plants. Currently, the population of bees is dramatically decreasing due to anthropogenic actions such as using harmful pesticides. If the population of bees go extinct, so many species would follow because they would not get pollinated. This is problematic because humans do not have the time or the funds to replicate the vital work of the bee.

“Biological diversity is of fundamental importance to the functioning of all natural and human-engineered ecosystems, and by extension to the ecosystem services that nature provides free of charge to human society ”(Lloyd, 2014). Biodiversity is very important to both plants, animals and humans on Earth and if one species is destroyed it throw the balance off .

Chapin, F.S., Carpenter, S.R., Kofinas, G.P., Folke, C., Abel, N., Clark, W.C., …& Swanson, F.J (2010). Ecosystem stewardship: sustainability strategies for a rapid change planet.

So we will talk about biodiversity first. Biodiversity is a group of different living organisms from around the world in one community. And biodiversity helps the biosphere because they can produce better and help other plants and humans in need. Some plants and trees have different characteristics regarding to their species.

An ecosystem is the dynamic complex of plant, animal and micro-organism communities and their non-living environment as a functional unit. Ecosystems are systems through which incoming solar energy is captured and channelled through a hierarchy of life forms. Each ecosystem has its own characteristic plant and animal community.

Biological diversity, also known as biodiversity, describes the huge variety of species found on Earth and the natural way in which ecosystems and communities are formed. In the past few centuries, humans have had an especially negative

Biodiversity is the variety of spices within plants and animals in the environment, it is an indicator of ecosystem health.

Land and soil quality is important to agriculture, but so is plant and the animal systems. The can be defined as ecosystems, and agriculture is an agroecosystem. The ecosystem links between the function of soil, water, and air. Changing concepts have been made from management of a single-resource, single species approach to making it a multiple management approach that would involve the structure, composition, and function of the entire ecosystems. Soil quality can be defined as the capacity of soil that is to function with ecosystem boundaries to sustain biological productivity that will maintain environmental quality, and promote plant and animal health (CEQ, 1993).

Ecosystem services are defined as the direct and indirect benefits to human well being that are derived from ecosystems and ecosystem function (Gomez-Baggethun and Barton 2013, TEEB 2011), or in other words, “the conditions and processes through which natural ecosystems, and the species that make them up, sustain and fulfill human life” (Daily, 1997, p. 3). The ecosystem service framework may be used to assess present day function, monitor change over time, and inform future planning, conservation, and restoration to maximize the ecosystem function and services generated at multiple scales (Daily et al. 2009; Sukhdev et al. 2010).

Biodiversity is very important because when there is a wider variety of plants and animals in an area there are more options for food to be consumed. Also biodiversity can help an ecosystem survive after a disaster happens. For example if a volcano erupts and covers an area with ash, this ash then kills all of the plants in the area then all of the wild life can’t survive because there are no plants to eat or hide under. With biodiversity the trees can grow back from the nutrients in the ash then grass can start growing which then allows flowers to grow and than bees come along and pollinate the flowers which then produce

Biodiversity presents occurrence of variety of species and their natural community in which they live. By the definition it is “The degree of variation of life forms within a given species, ecosystem, biome, or an entire planet. It is a measure of the health of ecosystems and is in part a function of climate.” (Rutherford) Ecosystem is on the other hand, “ community and its abiotic environment”( Rutherford). Biodiversity exists in every ecosystem, weather it is big one, or just ecosystem of one garden, it has the same importance because without it nature loses its ability to perform major functions needed for life on Earth, as it is oxygen production. Trough this investigation, two different ecosystems will be explored and

In addition, biodiversity will be crucial for humanities continued survival in the case of climate change or widespread crop failures. The majority of people on earth are reliant on four crops for subsistence; wheat, rice, corn, and millet. (11) These crops are threatened by climate change and the spread of disease facilitated by modern transportation. If humanity is to survive such an eventuality it must be ready to draw upon the earth’s biodiversity for replacements. And while there are approximately 50 thousand plant species that could offer alternatives, this bank of resources is quickly thinning as various ecosystems are being destroyed. (11)

Humans have existed since 200,000 years but the Earth has existed around 4.5 billion years. Nature has provided us with everything we have today - food, medicines, materials, chemicals, metals, minerals etc. It can only keep providing us when we maintain the right environment for it to exist. This environment depends on the biodiversity of Earth. The number of species of plants, animals and microorganisms and the various genes in these species, different ecosystems such as deserts, rainforests and coral reefs are all part of a biologically diverse Earth. Hence Biodiversity impacts everything. We will discuss how Biodiversity plays a crucial role on social, environmental, and economic factors. We will also discuss what

Franck and Brownstone define biological diversity as 'the variety and variability of living organisms and the biological communities in which they live' (36). Decades of progress in both the scientific and political arenas have advanced environmental legislation to protect biodiversity at not only the ecosystem level, but for specific species and genetic material as well. Research has shown the importance of every organism and their role in the global ecosystem, and legislation has gradually matured to protect not only species which may become endangered, but the habitats they need to survive as well. Growing consciousness surrounding environmental issues has enabled these protections to be