All the diverse forms of life constitute an ecosystem and are termed collectively as the biodiversity of the ecosystem. It is necessary for biodiversity to remain so diverse in order for balancing and sustaining life within the ecosystem. To understand the importance of biodiversity, it is essential that one first understands the concept that all the species within a bionetwork are linked to each other through direct or indirect dependency.

Even the microbes that we cannot see with our eyes but are present inside our digestive system helps us to digest food and release vital energy. As we are dependent on those bacteria within our system, the bacteria are also dependent on their hosts for survival, because it cannot survive on its own. Plants are the primary producers of food in our ecosystem, but even they are helped by earthworms and certain microbes by enriching the soil with valuable nutrients and creating ideal conditions, without which the plants cannot make food. In this way, living beings are dependent on each other for reasons as vital as food, health and habitat to name a few. Therefore, if this chain is broken due to the extinction of one species within an ecosystem, the results could be destructive on the entire bionetwork. When a species that is so important to the entire ecosystem that the loss of it could cause the rest of the ecosystem to suffer greatly, is lost due to extinction, the ensuing consequence is known as “The Cascade Effect” and the irreplaceable species is known as the “Umbrella Species”. Elephants are an umbrella species that are on the brink of extinction and their huge size is making it almost impossible for them to survive anymore. Human beings are the biggest threat to the planet’s ecosystem and as long as they continue to increase in population and in technology while disregarding nature, our planet’s biodiversity will only shrink with time. Man is the most advanced race and as they continue to increase in number, they are taking up the habitat of all the other animals for their own needs and benefits.

This, if unchecked, will rid the planet of almost all forms of biodiversity except the ones that humans need for consumption or any other purpose. Humans will not escape the devastating effects of biodiversity loss either, as the planet itself will change and become more and more inhospitable with the loss of every species, until it can sustain life no longer.