4 ms·

I’m never clear in what it means to lose biodiversity. Rainforests are < 10% of the earths land mass but contain a massive proportion of biodiversity. There are

I’m never clear in what it means to lose biodiversity. Rainforests are < 10% of the earths land mass but contain a massive proportion of biodiversity. There are many species that live in small segments of a single rainforest. We cut down rainforests all the time. I would assume naively that if we reduce 1% of rainforest area we lose some single digit percent of the earth’s biodiversity. Reducing biodiversity in other ecosystems would take a lot more effort (not to make it sound like a goal). It wouldn’t be incorrect to say the earth’s biodiversity is rapidly dropping, purely due to the Amazon. What do we mean?

Retric 7y ago
One use of the term was in reference to novel biological compounds. In that context species diversity means quite a bit with millions of samples not being significantly more useful than hundreds. With so many medical compounds arising from plant or animal life it’s not an unreasonable idea that a major drug has been lost with the loss of tropical species. Though, this seems to be less important with advances in biotechnology.
- dnautics 7y ago
  The irony though is that the rainforest is actually one of the least biodiverse parts of the world for that particular purpose. Sure, the rainforest is biodiverse for megafauna and, to a lesser degree, megaflora, but if you really want to mine biodiversity for biochemicals, you ought to care about bacteria and fungi, which reproduce and gene-share like crazy. The best places for that are places which drive resource competition and don't have jerk megaflora fumigating the area with simple terpenes -- the desert. However, the desert is less photographically charismatic (in terms of showing 'life') and probably also researchers would rather ask for grants to visit the rainforest or go scuba diving, so that biases the public's perception of where biodiversity exists. https://www.pnas.org/content/103/3/626.short https://www.pnas.org/content/103/3/626.short
  - Retric 7y ago
    In terms of medicine, the further an organism is from humans the less likely it's compounds are directly useful. Bacteria have a huge variety of compounds, but are so alien they have been a poor source of medical compounds. Plants on the other hand while still very separated from us need to interact with animals on a regular basis which closes the gap. CRISPER is arguably the exception that proves the rule here. Extremely useful, but no need to preserve exotic locations. PS: Not that I necessarily agree with this, but I have seen this line of reasoning put forth.
    - dnautics 7y ago
      What? Every single compound that ends in -mycin/-micin comes from bacteria. Erythromycin Azithromycin Tobramycin Kanamycin Clindamycin Clarithromycin Gentamicin Streptomycin Vancomycin Lincomycin Telithromycin Fosfomycin Doxorubicin Etc...
      - Retric 7y ago
        That’s from something like 1 trillion bacteria species vs 300k plant species. Considering we have 120+ important medical compounds from plants we would need ~400,000 from bacteria for each species to have equal weight. Further, fighting bacteria is a connection between us and bacteria so deriving an antibiotic is an obvious connection. Looking for say an anti cholesterol drug on the other hand and your stuck with random interactions.
        dnautics 7y ago
        normalizing by number of species (which is a vague concept anyways, most species nomenclature in bacteria is driven by the need to publish - salmonella and e coli are basically the same) is completely irrelevant concept for this discussion. When you're looking for 'random interactions' most chemists reach for combichem anyways. Look at all of the drugs that treat CML - (gleevec eg) none of them come from any biotic source.
hyperion2010 7y ago
Loss of biodiversity is like throwing away millions of years of the results of the execution of a blind search algorithm running over an unimaginably high dimensional space. Human civilization will forever be trying to recall the dream from which it has awoken, but the details are gone and every second we are awake they slip further away. Who knows what questions we could have answered if we still had the record of that search?

Retric 7y ago

One use of the term was in reference to novel biological compounds. In that context species diversity means quite a bit with millions of samples not being significantly more useful than hundreds. With so many medical compounds arising from plant or animal life it’s not an unreasonable idea that a major drug has been lost with the loss of tropical species. Though, this seems to be less important with advances in biotechnology.

dnautics 7y ago
The irony though is that the rainforest is actually one of the least biodiverse parts of the world for that particular purpose. Sure, the rainforest is biodiverse for megafauna and, to a lesser degree, megaflora, but if you really want to mine biodiversity for biochemicals, you ought to care about bacteria and fungi, which reproduce and gene-share like crazy. The best places for that are places which drive resource competition and don't have jerk megaflora fumigating the area with simple terpenes -- the desert. However, the desert is less photographically charismatic (in terms of showing 'life') and probably also researchers would rather ask for grants to visit the rainforest or go scuba diving, so that biases the public's perception of where biodiversity exists. https://www.pnas.org/content/103/3/626.short https://www.pnas.org/content/103/3/626.short
- Retric 7y ago
  In terms of medicine, the further an organism is from humans the less likely it's compounds are directly useful. Bacteria have a huge variety of compounds, but are so alien they have been a poor source of medical compounds. Plants on the other hand while still very separated from us need to interact with animals on a regular basis which closes the gap. CRISPER is arguably the exception that proves the rule here. Extremely useful, but no need to preserve exotic locations. PS: Not that I necessarily agree with this, but I have seen this line of reasoning put forth.
  - dnautics 7y ago
    What? Every single compound that ends in -mycin/-micin comes from bacteria. Erythromycin Azithromycin Tobramycin Kanamycin Clindamycin Clarithromycin Gentamicin Streptomycin Vancomycin Lincomycin Telithromycin Fosfomycin Doxorubicin Etc...
    - Retric 7y ago
      That’s from something like 1 trillion bacteria species vs 300k plant species. Considering we have 120+ important medical compounds from plants we would need ~400,000 from bacteria for each species to have equal weight. Further, fighting bacteria is a connection between us and bacteria so deriving an antibiotic is an obvious connection. Looking for say an anti cholesterol drug on the other hand and your stuck with random interactions.
      - dnautics 7y ago
        normalizing by number of species (which is a vague concept anyways, most species nomenclature in bacteria is driven by the need to publish - salmonella and e coli are basically the same) is completely irrelevant concept for this discussion. When you're looking for 'random interactions' most chemists reach for combichem anyways. Look at all of the drugs that treat CML - (gleevec eg) none of them come from any biotic source.

hyperion2010 7y ago

Loss of biodiversity is like throwing away millions of years of the results of the execution of a blind search algorithm running over an unimaginably high dimensional space. Human civilization will forever be trying to recall the dream from which it has awoken, but the details are gone and every second we are awake they slip further away. Who knows what questions we could have answered if we still had the record of that search?