Biodiversity provides not only beauty, but also the future of our world.

The little boy enthusiastically pulls the bait. The fishing line flies up, and the bristling spiky fish hits him right in the eye. He likes walking in nature very much, so he ignores pain, but his eyesight deteriorates over the next few months. He continues to enjoy the love of nature, but after he was left with one healthy eye, his possibilities are limited to studying creatures that are easier to see: insects. He grows up and becomes the world authority on ants, and in the later period of his life he gets the nickname “father of biodiversity”.

This is Edward Osborne Wilson , an eminent American biologist. In his 1992 book Diversity of Life, he described biodiversity as a collection that “absorbed storms, packed them into our genes, and created the world that created us. It makes the world sustainable. ” We see biodiversity as a landscape full of jungle or coral reefs, and its destruction as deforestation and extinction of species. However, such pictures do not reflect the importance of the balance described by Wilson. Biodiversity is not only the wealth of life on Earth. This is what maintains the sustainability and flexibility of the environment as a whole, so that life is able to wait out the inevitable "storm".

World Convention on Biological Diversity [signed by 145 countries; The United States signed it, but has not yet ratified it, and has not undertaken any obligations / approx. transl.] defines its essence as the diversity of living organisms at three different levels: within a species, between species and in ecosystems. Intraspecific diversity is found at the level of genes. Species consist of individuals. For example, the total number of individuals per 10,000 species of ants is estimated at an unbelievable number of 10 ¹⁵ . With the rare exception of twins, each of these individuals has a unique combination of genes. If we destroy half of the ants of each species, we still have 10,000 species of ants, but we lose 50% of the genetic diversity of each species. In the recent history, many species have reduced their number and to far smaller numbers. Before coming to Columbus in North America, its plains plowed 25 million bison. By the end of the 1880s, fewer than 100 remained in the wild. And although intervention to preserve the species has since increased their number to hundreds of thousands, the lost genetic diversity will never be returned.

The value of biodiversity can be understood by examples from our species. People have different alleles , or forms of genes, for eye color, curly hair, muscle tone, and so on. These alleles can be useful in one environment and useless in another. In cloudy northern climates, pale skin contributes well to the production of vitamin D, and in sunny regions it is harmful, because people can earn sunburn and skin cancer. Effective fat storage will increase your chances of survival on an island with an unpredictable intake of food, but can lead to type 2 diabetes if you follow a Western diet high in sugar. The huge genetic diversity gives us more options in the face of rapid environmental change, it is due to climatic conditions, the emergence of new diseases or the invasion of another species.

The second layer is interspecific diversity. We are best acquainted with this biodiversity - an amazing assortment of animals, plants and microorganisms in the world. According to the 2011 report, of the approximately 9 million species living on Earth, we were able to describe only about 1.2 million. We know plants, birds and mammals well. However, a trawler in the sea can pull to the surface about 90% of unknown species. Species are unevenly distributed throughout the world. On the topic of why this is happening, there are many hypotheses, but the pattern is obvious: the wealth of species increases when moving from the poles to the equator.

And finally, we have a variety of ecosystems. Species interact with each other, with sunlight, air, soil and water, forming ecosystems. From the arctic tundra to the tropical jungle, from the mouths of rivers to the midnight sea, the Earth serves as a home to a huge number of ecosystems. It is not always obvious how to delineate the boundaries of such zones. An ecosystem can be as large as the Great Barrier Reef , or as small as a community of sponges, algae and worms living on the shell of a spider crab . And if there is a clear separation between the coastal forest and the sea, then there is no definite point where the forest ends and the savanna begins.

Species within an ecosystem compete with each other for resources such as light and food - but also rely on each other. Of all the flowering plants in the world, 87% are pollinated by animals, and coral reefs provide shelter for 25% of marine life. Bacteria process dead flesh into nitrates, the only compound from which plants are able to create proteins. Ecosystems provide “services” that support life inside and outside ecosystems. People could not survive without these services, which include clean air, drinking water, recycling of waste and pollination of food plants.

One intriguing natural phenomenon is that in any ecosystem several species will differ in large numbers, and most species will be rather small. It turns out that there are few species, and there are many few species. Just as genetic diversity provides the species with resistance to environmental change, species diversity increases the resilience of ecosystems. For example, in freshwater ecosystems in eastern Pennsylvania, rare yeast species can be found. In the presence of water polluting mercury, this yeast shortens the metabolic pathway leading to the poisoning of most other species. They store mercury in vacuoles, and then lay it on the surface of stones. At this time, the yeast becomes very much, but the toxic environment reduces the number of other species. As soon as the yeast clears the environment of mercury, the state of the environment ceases to do them good. Their number decreases, and the number of individuals of other species grows. In suitable conditions, any rare species is likely to be able to increase the number of individuals in its ecosystem. Thus, ecosystem diversity can report what happened to it in the past, and indicate the potential for adaptation to future changes.

The irony is that the word "biodiversity" is widespread mainly because of the fact that people are engaged in the destruction of what it means. This term was first used by the US National Research Council in 1985 in a forum dedicated to the problems of biodiversity loss. After this, phyloscope Brian Norton compared the Earth with a patient whose survival depends on the resuscitation apparatus. “There are so many wires and screws in this machine, they are hardly needed,” the patient happily soothes. Would you risk in this situation? Biodiversity supports the familiar life. This is exactly the device that keeps us in a steady state.