Visualizing the value of biological diversity

Biodiversity is the variety of life, typically quantified as the number of different species living together in an area. Biodiversity varies from place to place, but generally human-impacted environments like farms and cities have low biodiversity, while less disturbed natural environments like tropical reefs and rainforests have high biodiversity. Every bit of biodiversity is valuable, though, and preserving or restoring diversity in human-impacted environments is important for many reasons.

People who study or spend a lot of time in nature usually have a strong appreciation for biodiversity, but the general public and decision makers don't always "get" why biodiversity matters. Therefore, environmental advocates are constantly challenged with how to communicate the values of biodiversity. We may emphasize moral and aesthetic concerns, like the beauty of diverse environments and the moral wrong of causing extinctions. Or we may emphasize pragmatic values of biodiversity- the tangible benefits it provides to humanity. These benefits are called "ecosystem services" and are described well in this 2012 Nature paper by Cardinale et al.

I fiddled around in PowerPoint yesterday trying to create some visuals for the values of biodiversity. The first is a single image contrasting a very low diversity lawn to a high diversity meadow environment, and listing some of the benefits of the latter.



The second is a series of images trying to explain the "niche complementarity effect" - one of the mechanisms by which a biodiverse environment can outperform a low diversity environment. Feel free to use any of these images if you like.