Why is species diversity important?

[Combat Ingrid]

Are you being serious or are you being ?

What's the confusion? If you're a victim it's clearly your own fault for not being strong enough to protect yourself, right?

 

[Monsterzuma]

Are you being serious or are you being ?

i think what i said is accurate, actually, but that's not a reason to view species extinction with indifference. natural selection has no special virtue from a moral point of view, or even from the point of view of long term self-interest seeing as how the preservation of ecosystems is often beneficial to humans and can yield conditions for scientific discovery that can not be reproduced upon being destroyed.

so yeah, there was some involved.

 

[Eat_Up_Martha]

So say we take in a couple of these dolphins, take care of them in some contained environment and make sure they don't go extinct. What then? Will we ever introduce them back into the wild? Where? In some new habitat? Where they will have to compete with existing species there and destabilize that particular habitat?

What's the plan? The fact is that the planet is getting dirtier because of us.. and sure, I applaud efforts to save dying species, but.. Where are they going to live?

Maybe these new niches we've created (by destroying habitats) are better suited for other forms of life.

I think the flaw in your reasoning is that the human alterations to the environment will remain the same future years. As new technologies and industries thrive to meet a changing world, so too will the environmental consequences change , resulting in a fundamentally different ecosystem. Even different forms of the same industry will have drastic variances, like the different chemical runoffs from different metal smelting processes.
In order to ward off complete environmental collapse, it behooves us to to maintain a self-sufficicent stock of as many different species as possible. While a particular species may have difficulty in a system polluted with, say, copper runoff, it may be highly competitive in that same system a decade later if the copper plant shuts down and a fertilizer processing facility sets up shop.
A greater species diversity leads to a more adaptable system, benefiting everyone.

 

[warpus]

I think the flaw in your reasoning is that the human alterations to the environment will remain the same future years. As new technologies and industries thrive to meet a changing world, so too will the environmental consequences change , resulting in a fundamentally different ecosystem. Even different forms of the same industry will have drastic variances, like the different chemical runoffs from different metal smelting processes.
In order to ward off complete environmental collapse, it behooves us to to maintain a self-sufficicent stock of as many different species as possible. While a particular species may have difficulty in a system polluted with, say, copper runoff, it may be highly competitive in that same system a decade later if the copper plant shuts down and a fertilizer processing facility sets up shop.
A greater species diversity leads to a more adaptable system, benefiting everyone.

So what do we do with all the species while they're unable to live in their habitat? Keep them in a zoo? Can we just store their DNA and bring them back to life when their ecosystems recover? Is anything like that being done at the present?

And are any ecosystems around the world actually improving?

 

[tycoonist]

I happen to think nature is kind of beautiful as it is. If we were to lose rhinos or tigers or pandas, nature wouldn't look quite as good. I don't have to come up with a practical reason why an animal is valuable to us to not want it to become extinct.

 

[Luckymoose]

Honestly, large mammalian animals dying out from an ecosystem where they hardly have a presence anymore is unlikely to matter. It has happened throughout the history of life and humans are breaking a system that brings about change. We have no right.

 

[warpus]

Could we really just save DNA of all the species that are dying out and re-build them later if we have to? Say, if we were sending a spaceship to colonize another planet? Or is that impossible? Or just not yet attainable?

 

[zjintz]

I happen to think nature is kind of beautiful as it is. If we were to lose rhinos or tigers or pandas, nature wouldn't look quite as good. I don't have to come up with a practical reason why an animal is valuable to us to not want it to become extinct.

Agree. we don't need more reasons.

Is like asking, why we should keep the Monalisa? .

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

You don't just preserve the species, because that's too limited, you preserve their habitat.

 

[timtofly]

Because those who hold to evolution fear it the most?

 

[emzie]

Could we really just save DNA of all the species that are dying out and re-build them later if we have to? Say, if we were sending a spaceship to colonize another planet? Or is that impossible? Or just not yet attainable?

Plausible, but that sounds like a measure of desperation.

Drawing an analogy to dying languages / cultures and endangered species isn't very valid. It's an emotional response -- it works for tigers and pandas, but does it work for rotifer? How much sleep will you lose if a species of ant goes extinct? What are you willing to personally give up to save a rare slug on Borneo? Even as a biology student, I'd be lying to say I emotionally cared about any animals like slugs going extinct.

However, as I said earlier, ecology is so interconnected and so complex that it's impossible to know what species is a keystone for another. An obvious example might be honey bees. Do I particularly like honey bees? I'm indifferent. But I do enjoy cheap food that depends upon pollination from bees to grow. That's a very simple example, whereas ecology is usually much too intertwined to know what will cause what.

I'm not against economic development, even in cases where some environmental damage happens. But I do champion caution.

 

[warpus]

You don't just preserve the species, because that's too limited, you preserve their habitat.

I think that's key - preserving the habitat. If we can't do that - where are these animals going to live, if we save them?

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

I think that's key - preserving the habitat. If we can't do that -

we're sorry excuses for living creatures. So, yeah, it's a very likely scenario. The funny thing to keep in mind is that we also have a habitat. Can we preserve that?

 

[El_Machinae]

But unless we are able to restore this species' habitat to what it used to be, what would be the point of keeping the dolphins (for example) around, if they aren't able to cope with the new conditions?

Human industry is here to stay and I don't think parts of the world are going to get much cleaner.. So I understand wanting to preserve a couple members of each species' in a controlled environment, but where are they going to live in the wild? We already know they aren't well suited at adapting to the new environment.

Well, keeping a few remainders in zoos seems to be an exercise in nostalgia. It's not really the same as managing an ecosystem back to health.

But recovering an ecosystem back to health is possible. And it's also possible to manage ecosystems such that extinctions are slower, which is probably just as important. I can find loads of articles on pubmed about 'ecosystem recovery'.

 

[SerriaFox]

Plausible, but that sounds like a measure of desperation.

Drawing an analogy to dying languages / cultures and endangered species isn't very valid. It's an emotional response -- it works for tigers and pandas, but does it work for rotifer? How much sleep will you lose if a species of ant goes extinct? What are you willing to personally give up to save a rare slug on Borneo? Even as a biology student, I'd be lying to say I emotionally cared about any animals like slugs going extinct.

However, as I said earlier, ecology is so interconnected and so complex that it's impossible to know what species is a keystone for another. An obvious example might be honey bees. Do I particularly like honey bees? I'm indifferent. But I do enjoy cheap food that depends upon pollination from bees to grow. That's a very simple example, whereas ecology is usually much too intertwined to know what will cause what.

I'm not against economic development, even in cases where some environmental damage happens. But I do champion caution.

This, we don't know, where the next cure will be found, and we don't know what animals/plants that it will depend. For example did you know that no wolves in Yellowstone leads to deforestation?

 

[aronnax]

I think that's key - preserving the habitat. If we can't do that - where are these animals going to live, if we save them?

The idea is not so much as saving the animals itself than salvaging the ecosystem. Of course, saving the species itself in a zoo or enclosure, although not the best of situations is important. We might not be able to make their former environments livable, but that doesn't me we have the right to just let them die, especially since it was our fault that we drove them to near extinction. I think humans have some moral obligation as well.

Plus, even an ugly river dolphin as the intrinsic value of the rich biodiversity of life. Animals don't need to be cute for us to save it. And I think the fact that the Yangtze River Dolphins are one of the four river dolphins is interesting and fascinating and that should be reason enough for it to continue to survive. Even if it is a small pool in a water world.

Plus, some cultures have place historical, moral, religious or cultural value on certain animals. Eagles for Americans, Tigers for India etc.

 

[carmen510]

I'm more concerned about the genetic diversity of the animals we use in food production (milk, eggs, meat, etc.) than about, say, endangered snakes. For example, commercial poultry has gone through the process of selective breeding, which is good if you want lots of breast meat, but it also makes the chickens more susceptible to disease. Good process for the short and medium-term, but long-term sustainability might be endangered. You can say the same for cows, pigs, etc.

 

[pesgores]

Insects are outright useless. And very annyoing. I wouldn't feel the slightest regret if I pressed a button that caused all bloodsucking bugs to die immediately and painfully.

 

[emzie]

This, we don't know, where the next cure will be found, and we don't know what animals/plants that it will depend. For example did you know that no wolves in Yellowstone leads to deforestation?

Yeah, cause my mom works there

 

[warpus]

I'm more concerned about the genetic diversity of the animals we use in food production (milk, eggs, meat, etc.) than about, say, endangered snakes. For example, commercial poultry has gone through the process of selective breeding, which is good if you want lots of breast meat, but it also makes the chickens more susceptible to disease. Good process for the short and medium-term, but long-term sustainability might be endangered. You can say the same for cows, pigs, etc.

In terms of genetic diversity, you are probably right that human-guided evolutionary products (poultry, bananas, domesticated dogs) are much more important as discussion points than endangered snakes or dolphins... but I guess if you really like dolphins you might disagree.

And hey, I feel bad for all the animals that are dying out there, sure.. but.. I feel a lot worse for the planet as a whole. I don't see us making the planet any better place to live for other species.. or ourselves.. so some species are just going to have to die off.. We've made the planet (and continue to make it) a worse place to live for all, and so, things will die.. I see it as the consequence of human impact, something that just has to be accepted as a loss.

It's like we're stabbing a 60 year old woman to death, but continue to perform plastic surgery on her face and body. We really need to focus on trying to stop the stabbing part before the new boobs go in.