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6. How is biodiversity important for ecosystem functioning?

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Importance of biodiversity in ecosystem functioning

1. Biodiversity is important for maintaining stability, productivity, resilience, alternative pathways and overall health of a particular ecosystem.

2. A scientist named David Tilman confirmed that higher the biodiversity higher will be the productivity of the ecosystem as more plants are there to photosynthesize and more decomposers are there to recycle the waste of the ecosystem. He also proved that if biodiversity of an area is high than a year to year variation in total biomass will be lesser contributing to the overall stability of an ecosystem.

3. Rich biodiversity provides resilience against natural as well as man-made disturbances.

4. To clarify the importance of rich biodiversity on ecosystem functioning, River Popper hypothesis was proposed by Paul Ehrlich. He cited that the way in an aeroplane all parts are joined by thousands of rivets, in an ecosystem all components are joined by species. As more and more rivets are removed the parts of aeroplane disassemble. Similarly, as species are removed the functioning of the ecosystem also gets affected. 

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