"Yeah, our office has to do biodiversity training today."

The economic benefits of biodiversity, importance of large carnivores, and how crucial bees are to humans are just a few of he things I learned from the blog this week. Bees are necessary for the survival of over 130,000 species, which accounts for 1/3 of all the food eat. The problem then comes when environmental pollution and pesticides come into the frame and cause a steady decline in bee population. As we all saw in the 2007 blockbuster Bee Movie, this decline can lead to massive problems. The importance of large carnivores is their ability to keep herbivores in check. When we kill all the wolves in a forest, nothing is stopping the rabbits from eating everything, leading to a collapse in the food web. The final point I found interesting was the economic value of biodiversity. While the article pointed out that it's strange and somewhat wrong to put a price on nature, it was estimated that spending around $25 Billion on reducing emissions could save humans an average of $3.2 Trillion.

The politics of carbon emission reduction and studying inter-species interactions relate to what we cover in APES. Convincing any government to invest the aforementioned $25 Billion in the environment is a stretch. Facts seem to always get ignored, and no one can ever think further than a week in government. Interactions between species such as bees and producers is a topic we cover in class as well. Observing things like energy transfer, reproduction, and consumption help us to see how the degradation of one species can potentially irreversibly harm another. 

One question I have after reading this is what carnivores have we replaced? If people hunt enough deer annually in Texas, for example, do we really need coyotes anymore? Does there exist some third level species that we don't need to exist anymore?