 |  Environmental Science: A Global Concern, 7/e William P. Cunningham,
University of Minnesota
Mary Ann Cunningham,
Vassar College
Barbara Woodworth Saigo,
St. Cloud State University
Biodiversity
Chapter OverviewEarth may have as many as 50 million species, possibly more. We are familiar with only a handful. You have already learned about some of the earth's biological resources important to humans. Crop plants, trees, and grasses were discussed in earlier chapters. We get much more from our biological resources than food and fiber, however. This chapter is concerned with the rest of the earth's species. The diverse ways they are important to us may surprise you.
Elephants, dolphins, lions, and whales have a special place in the hearts of many people. A central message of this chapter, however, is that large numbers of other species, including the creepy, crawly, and slimy kinds, possess fundamental value as well. The value of biodiversity is summed up less in the striking poster picture of a giant panda than by the nameless millions of tiny crawlers and microbes that busy themselves in ways we may never fully understand. Yet, we are now causing the most wholesale extinction of species the earth may ever have known. How can this be stopped? That is another issue examined in this chapter.
|
|
2003 McGraw-Hill Higher Education