Now that you know what ecosystems are about, you can see why variety is the key to a healthy natural community. For that reason, our projects are designed to help you to consider as many species as possible.
One way to understand the importance of our backyard habitat projects is to examine their impact on biodiversity. Biodiversity is a simple way of saying biological diversity, or a variety of living things. We can examine biodiversity through three "windows": genetic diversity (the variety of genes in a species); species diversity (the variety of species in a region); and ecosystem diversity (the variety of natural communities in the ecosphere). Conserving these three kinds of diversity is vital to the future of all wildlife - as well as to human beings.
Let's look through the first window, genetic diversity. Genes are the building blocks of species, and ease species has very particular genes found in no other creature. When a species becomes extinct, its genes disappear, and once lost, they are gone forever. Why are they so important? Because the world's genetic resources are like the hugest ocean of information you can imagine. Each species represents just a drop in the ocean, and in every drop there are amazing secrets waiting to be discovered.
Conserving wildlife species preserves vital genetic diversity. Scientists use the genetic material in wild species to develop improved crops, new medicines, and raw materials for industry. In turn, these new developments contribute billions of dollars yearly to the world economy; earthworms, bees, and termites may be far more important than we realize!
The second window through which we can examine biodiversity is species diversity. Every ecosystem contains a variety of species that depend on each other for survival. Sometimes the connection is obvious, like the cycle of small bugs being eaten by bigger bugs, which in turn are eaten by birds. Other connections between species are more complex. A perfect example is the link between sea otters and kelp forests in Alaska’s and British Columbia's coastal waters.
Sea otters were hunted into near extinction for their glossy pelts in the past two centuries. An international treaty in 1911 granted them full protection - too late for the Canadian population, which had already been extirpated. Scientists soon realized that, where sea otters disappeared, kelp forests disappeared, too, along with a web of interdependent species, including seals and bald eagles. That’s because sea otters have a voracious appetite for purple sea urchins, which dine on kelp, but once kelp is munched loose from the ocean floor by hungry urchins, it is washed away with the waves. Today, sea otters are recovering in Alaska and British Columbia, and wherever sea otters live, you'll find a healthy balance of sea urchins, kelp forests, fish, seals, and bald eagles.
The third window to look at biodiversity through is ecosystem diversity. As we've already seen, there are many kinds of ecosystems. In each one, whether it's a marshland, alpine meadow, or rocky coast, there is a special assortment of species, some of which are found nowhere else on Earth.
In short, through your backyard habitat projects, you're conserving ecosystem diversity to save as many different natural communities (and the species within them) as possible. You're conserving species diversity so that a wide variety of genes can be saved. You're conserving genetic diversity to ensure that we save as many blueprints as possible. Finally, you're succeeding by helping wildlife and ecosystems in every conceivable way.