What is the significance of Biodiversity to Human beings?
Biodiversity provides numerous direct or indirect services to human beings. These are: i) Source of food and improved varieties:- Biodiversity directly or indirectly add as the source of food, cloth, and shelter. ii) Fats and Oils:- A variety of plants are used to extract different kinds of oils. iii) Fibres:- A variety of plants eg. cotton, hemp, jute are the chief sources of fibers. iv) Resins:- Resins are sticky exudation of plants. v) Gums, Timber, Paper, Tannins, Dyes:- Plants species provide a variety of useful products such as gums, raisins, dyes, similarly animal species also provide leather, fur, honey, silk, pearl, etc. vi) Drugs and Medicines:- Living organisms also contain several therapeutically useful substances. vii) Stability of Ecosystem:- The food web, food chain energy flow in various trophic levels, and biochemical cycles occurs in natural ways without any hindrance if there is proper availability of diversified species viii) Aesthetic, Scientific and Recreational values:- Indian people grow many plants because they regard them as sacred.
