What is Biodiversity?

Biodiversity simply means biological diversity.
Our environment contains a variety of plants, animals and aquatic life. Each species has a unique role within the environment and, as a result, each relies on the other for survival. Maintaining such biodiversity is essential for creating a healthy environment that is capable of sustaining all species that live within it. The more diverse the ecosystem, the better it is able to respond to changes or stresses, such as floods, drought, pests and disease. It is also a measure of landscape health.

Why should farmers and ranchers be interested in maintaining or enhancing biodiversity on their land?

• Maintaining the full complement of native plant, animal, insect, and microbe populations helps stabilize our environment, improving our land's ability to deal with environmental stresses like floods and drought.
• Having greater biodiversity in our agricultural landscapes provides us with more land management choices and flexibility, ensuring the longevity of our agricultural operations and industry.
• Plant and animal genetic diversity ensures that we have the resources to continue to improve our crop and livestock breeds. About half the year-to-year increases in crop productivity result directly from genetic improvements with the genes coming from existing genetic variability of crops. Maintaining genetic diversity is key to our capacity to respond to diseases and other pests.
• Biodiversity increases stability of an ecosystem. A recent grasslands study demonstrated that productivity in more diverse plant communities is more resistant to, and recovers more fully from, a major drought. Greater species diversity also significantly increases productivity in normal years, as well as utilizing nitrogen more completely, leading to lower leaching loss of nitrogen from high diversity ecosystems.