Over the long term, maintaining soil fertility may require nurturing, creating and sparing plant and microbial diversity. After all, biodiversity itself appears to control the elemental cycles—carbon, nitrogen, water—that allow the planet to support life. Only by acting in conjunction with one another, for example, can a set of grassland plant species maintain healthy levels of nitrogen in both soil and leaf. "As soil fertility increases, this directly boosts biomass production," just as in agriculture, Reich notes. "When we reduce diversity in the landscape—think of a cornfield or a pine plantation or a suburban lawn—we are failing to capitalize on the valuable natural services that biodiversity provides."

At least one of those services is largely unaffected, however, according to Hooper's study—decomposition. Which means the bacteria and fungi will still happily break down whatever plants are left after this sixth extinction. But thousands of unique species have already been lost, most unknown even to science—a rate that could halve the total number of species on the planet by 2100, according to entomologist E. O. Wilson of Harvard University. Ghosts of species past haunt ecosystems worldwide, which have already lost not just one or another type of grass or roundworm but also some of their strength at sustaining life as a whole.

8 Comments

1. 1. gesimsek 04:15 PM 5/3/12

   How is it possible that China is able to feed its billion people with one big river system but US finds it hard for its millions with many river systems. Is rice the answer or the asian diet?

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2. 2. geojellyroll 07:26 PM 5/3/12

   Odd. The ecosystem with the greatest biomass in the world is the Pacific west coast of Vancouver Island, British Columbia. It actually does not have a fraction of the diversity of species as compared to more tropical areas.
   
   Gemisek...the USA is the world's largest exporter of food...by multiples. Monoculyure in the USe...corn, soya beans, grains, rice, potatoes, etc. feed great chunks of the world....including exports to China.

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3. 3. robert_lindsay 07:33 PM 5/3/12

   Thank you the article. In abstraction, I believe it supports a theory: that for a group of cooperating actors in an unpredictable, changing environment survivability is enhanced through agility and robustness, and that these two qualities are based upon the group of actors maintaining diversity (ie differences in capabilities and viewpoint) across the group. A corollary being that the group will operate sub-optimally against a team of specialists for some sets of circumstances.
   In general I believe this stands against "eugenics" or attempts to view "special needs" infants or individuals as not necessary to the survival of our species. I also believe it supports that Racism or any attempt to reduce the societal participation of individuals based upon a set of characteristics weakens rather than strengthens the society.
   Finally, I would think this would argue against concentrating group authority - for example a strong centrally controlled economy vs a federation of individual free markets as reduces the diversity of market mechanics.

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4. 4. Owl905 12:54 PM 5/4/12

   Pets, product, pest, and ghosts. Add this article to the epitaph list as the rich soil enabled by biodiversity becomes the next farm field or fish farm. Forget the phrase 'cry me a river' ... it's more like 'cry me a crop'.

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5. 5. gesimsek in reply to geojellyroll 03:45 PM 5/4/12

   Try to do that without fertilizers and pesticides as they do in China

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6. 6. Nichol 10:42 AM 5/7/12

   Nice article! I would like to believe this, as I already value biodiversity. But maybe we need more studies like this to confirm this message? It also suggests that a biodiverse mix of plants, and animals may not only better at producing biomass, but also at binding CO2 in carbon. The difference may also depend a lot on the local conditions of soil, water, climate?

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7. 7. RobertV 09:00 AM 5/8/12

   T

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8. 8. starplusdramas 08:47 AM 9/17/12

   Totally agree with your suggestion... Very nice post and good information here... Thanks for posting that....
   http://star-drama.com/StarTVDrama/star-plus

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