What is Biodiversity?

I have committed myself to investigating the biodiversity of the York River for the next 10 or so weeks, but what is biodiversity? I define biodiversity as the necessary variation and culmination of life on Earth. High biodiversity establishes redundancy and is the basis for a stable and resilient environment. While an individual may be enough to heavily influence local biodiversity, influencing it on a larger scale requires concentrated efforts. For example, I can control the species in my yard pretty well, but regionally is harder to control. America has regional outbreaks of invasive species, like emerald ash borers or spotted lantern flies, which lower biodiversity. The USDA works to control these outbreaks so they do not spread to unaffected areas, however a regional outbreak can seem impossible to control at times (USDA, 2023). On national and international scales, the response necessary is massive and more factors are at play. While some species can boost an areas native diversity, they can become an invasive in a different sector of the world. We can work to protect biodiversity by being good stewards of local diversity and assisting in coordinated moves to address biodiversity at larger scales.

My view on biodiversity was heavily influenced by Bringing Nature Home by Douglas W. Tallamy (2009). In this book, Tallamy compares species to rivets on a plane. Losing one may be no big deal, but the more you loose the less stable your plane is. There is no way to tell which rivet will be the one that leads to the destruction of your plane. While I agree with this assessment of biodiversity in a factual scientific way, my motivation to study biodiversity stems from a different philosophy.

Robin Wall Kimmerer (2013) perfectly summarizes my feelings in "A mother's work" from her book Braiding Sweetgrass. Kimmerer talks about wanting to be a good mother to her daughters, taking on a years long project to clean their pond and make it swimmable. While clearing out the pond, Kimmerer reflects on what it means to be a good mother, not just for herself but for the environment around her as well. Cleaning out the pond could be easy (use pesticides, dump out all waste) but the easy solution discounts the lives of the biota around her. Instead, she works slowly, picking out all the animals she finds in the weeds she hauls from the pond. I too want to care for the world around me and tend to it like a good mother. Loosing one species, even despite redundancy, would be devastating.

Works Cited

Kimmerer, R. W. (2013). A mother's work. In Braiding sweetgrass: Indigenous wisdom, scientific knowledge, and the teachings of plants (pp. 131–142). Milkweed Editions.

Tallamy, D. W. (2009). Bringing nature home: How you can sustain wildlife with native plants (Updated and expanded ed.). Timber Press.

USDA. (2023). Spotted Lanternfly 5-Year Strategy Fiscal Years 2024-2028. https://www.aphis.usda.gov/sites/default/files/slf-strategy.pdf