A few things immediately come to mind on why at least some biodiversity may be important beyond cute animals: A) We still lean on natural processes for agricul

A few things immediately come to mind on why at least some biodiversity may be important beyond cute animals: A) We still lean on natural processes for agriculture (for instance, pollination plays a huge role in the production of certain fruits, and some species act as natural deterrents to crop pests). Biodiversity ensures that some of these natural processes we rely on are still functional and resilent to disease and other "cruelties of nature". (The same concern could also be said for biodiversity of cultivated crops, although that's a bit different of an issue than what is highlighted in the paper.) B) Biota oriented drug discovery still is pretty big even now. Less biodiversity means that we will have to lean more heavily on synthetic chemistry.