Articles
ECOLOGY, CONSERVATION AND TAXONOMY: INTRODUCTION
About 80% of the world’s food production is based on about 25 different plant and animal species, often kept in monoculture and genetically highly homogeneous.
The decrease of genetic diversity and reduction of the genetic reservoir may eventually lead to an increased risk of catastrophic losses by plant diseases and insect pests’.
Scientists have questioned these statements by saying that ‘a handful of various plant and animal species’ and micro-organisms could be sufficient to supply the genetic engineer with all the material (s)he needs to accomplish any change (s)he wants to introduce into agricultural crops and domestic animals.
Only tens, may be hundreds of thousands of species contain all genetic information that is, or even has ever been, present on earth.
To maintain this, we do not need millions of species.
It is even possible that all relevant genetic information is present somewhere in gene banks.
The loss of species is not the same as the loss of genes.
Moreover, there has always been an evolution and adaptation of species.
Any attempt to maintain the present situation is useless, as long as the potential for new adaptations is conserved.
This, of course, is only part of the story.
The pollution of estuaries and continental shelves can pose a serious threat to all oxygen-consuming organisms, including man.
The destruction of the rainforests will add to the CO2 problems we are facing, not to mention the water relations in the atmosphere.
Moreover, we know that each species has its own habitat.
The factors that characterize a habitat can be abiotic (temperature, humidity, mineral nutrients) and biotic (plants and animals, predators and prey, parasites and hosts). Together they form a complex system with countless interrelations.
Although stable adaptations of a species to a changing environment may occur, each change in a component can have dramatic effects on the system as a whole.
As long as the knowledge of the interactions in a biological system is scarce, we are obliged to protect the whole system.
This is particularly true for those biotypes that are essential for oxygen production, CO2 fixation and water regulation.
It is estimated that these biotypes contain about 90% of all species on earth.
Protection of these biotypes, therefore, protects about 90% of all species.
In the past, physical events like volcanic eruptions and meteorite impacts, and biological evolutions like the appearance of oxygen-producing algae, have caused dramatic changes in biological systems.
Now human activities have a major influence.
In addition to the ones already mentioned (which are related to the current high population