Guest Speaker: Joe Medeiros

Joe Medeiros came to class and spoke to us about the importance of biodiversity. It was really interesting to discover that biodiversity has three different aspects: cellular level, species level, and ecosystem level. These three elements combine to encompass "life's diversity". Mammals are the smallest group in number of different species, containing 4500 different species, compared to the insect group, containing 963,000 different species. 40 percent of these insects are beetles. Scientists estimate that there are 1 million billion ants on this earth, equaling the amount of flesh of the amount of humans on this earth. Those pesky ants that I'm always killing in my house actually have a purpose that i never knew about--more than just bothering people. They sustain ecosystems by turning and fertilizing the soil, all throughout the world. I realize that our entire life is 100 percent dependent on species, but thats crazy to truly think about. 100 percent dependent. I knew that the tropical rainforest has the highest amount of biodiversity, but I didn't know until today that it regulates the global atmosphere by regulating wind, temperature, and global rainfall. We benefit from having biodiversity in every way, but specifically due to the ecosystem services provided to us. For example, having trees around a city helps decrease erosion, it holds water, it increases the oxygen supply for the population and it stores carbon, decreasing atmospheric carbon levels that lead to global warming. Biodiversity doesnt just save a polar bear, it saves our own lives as well.