Why is it important to conserve biodiversity?

What is biodiversity? Why does it change? Why is it important to conserve it?

• Answer:

  Biodiversity is just when various species live in the same environment, performing different and distinct roles. It keeps the environment healthy by allowing for nutrients to cycle through the ecosystem, both up the food chain and back down to the bottom, and it keeps any one species from dominating the ecosystem in such a way that other species are made extinct, causing a dangerous imbalance. Genetic diversity is when there are enough genetically different members of the same species in a breeding population such that inbreeding does not occur and negative mutations are prevented. Without genetic diversity, inbreeding leads to the passing on of the same traits over and over again such that dangerous mutations form, and any ability to adapt to a changing environment is reduced to the point that extinction can occur.