BIODIVERSITY; INSPIRATION AND INFORMATION

Biodiversity-shorthand for biological diversity-is currently a popular buzzword. Nonetheless, many people are not aware of its full meaning. Still, the term is worth careful consideration because it is quite literally the ultimate source for the inspiration and information that pushes biotechnology forward.

A good working definition for biodiversity comes from conservation author Douglas H. Chadwick, who a decade ago described it as: "The full variety of life on Earth and all the processes and interactions that sustain it." In other words, biodiversity is more than just an inventory of the planet's myriad species of plants and animals. Biodiversity also includes all of the interactions, energy pathways, symbioses, and other elements that make life possible for those species.

Challenges and Solutions

Biodiversity is essentially the result of life's developing multiple solutions to recurring challenges. Different evolutionary lines evolved different means of coping with the various hardships of organic existence. As populations within these lineages persisted through time under the influence of their environment, distinct species arose and diversified to occupy and exploit new niches.

From a functional ecological perspective biodiversity is easily appreciated. More species generally translates into environmental and ecosystem stability over the long haul. The disappearance of one species will usually not cause an entire system to crash if many different species are present. Certainly from an aesthetic or moral/stewardship perspective, biological diversity is also appreciated. A world replete with all imaginable forms of biota is a more satisfying prospect to most of us than one from which the wonderful variety of living forms has been stripped away.

If biological diversity can serve as a source of inspiration for much of humankind, it represents something equally important to biotechnology professionals. For these scientists and technicians, the Earth's biodiversity is, among other things, information as well. It is information barely tapped and potentially limitless, a preposterously huge living database of the genes and biochemical compounds found in millions of distinct species on Earth that have evolved to make life possible for each of them.

In other words, the world around us is populated by millions of different species producing billions of diverse compounds used in untold numbers of ways by organisms to enhance their chances for survival. Many of these natural compounds contain answers to some of the challenges we face in our lives as well. The diversity of living systems thus supplies biotechnologists with both the inspiration and the information (albeit not easily given up at times) they need to begin taking on many of these challenges such as finding compounds to treat diseases.

Look to the Sea

If indeed biodiversity presents a promise of information and inspiration, we should reasonably conclude that those realms with the greatest biodiversity (most species) are the most likely wellsprings of such rewards. For those who wish to seek out such centers of diversity, where might this path lead?

Hint: They'd better come prepared to get wet.

The world's oceans cover two-thirds of the planet's surface and contain fully 99% of the biosphere (that part of the world in which life can exist). The oceans are centers of biodiversity, and very likely the point of origin for life on Earth. All but two of the 36 living animal phyla are found in the sea. Less than half that number occur on land.

Marine species diversity can be extraordinary. On some tropical coral reefs, for example, there can be1,000 species per square meter. Yet, for all the promise they contain, there are vast ocean regions that remain almost entirely unexplored. We have yet to devise exploration vehicles (manned or unmanned) capable of carrying out research in the deepest parts of the ocean. It has also been noted that humans have spent more time on the surface of the moon than we have in the abyssal ocean depths.

This lack of exploration remains rather amazing not only in light of the relatively low cost of ocean exploration when compared to space exploration, but also considering that we know how many ocean-based discoveries have already benefited mankind even though we've barely tapped into that potential. Sylvia Earle, an Ocean Explorer-In-Residence at the National Geographic Society, lamented in a 2004 interview that, ironically, "resources going into the investigation of our own planet and its oceans are trivial compared to investment looking for water elsewhere in the universe."

The oceans truly are among the last frontiers of exploration on the planet.

There is growing concern that we are losing many of the oceans' untold resources before we even fully understand them. But, there is also excitement in the marine biotech community that we are on the cusp of a new age of discovery. Hopefully the knowledge that many of these discoveries will directly benefit mankind will help awaken the sense of stewardship and preservation of the oceans that has too long been dormant in a great many of us.