Biological chain refers to the interdependent chain relationship formed by animals, plants and microorganisms providing food to each other.
This relationship is easy to see in nature. For example, there are often birds where there are trees, and there are often insects where there are flowers and grass. Plants, insects, birds and other organisms are linked and interdependent through biological chains.
Examples of biological chains are always around us and have benefited mankind a lot. For example, leaves and fruits of plants provide food for insects, and insects become food sources for birds. With birds, there are eagles and snakes. With eagles and snakes, mice will not be a disaster. When animal feces and corpses return to the soil, microorganisms in the soil will break them down into simple compounds, which will provide nutrients for plants and make them grow new leaves and fruits. In this way, the biological chain has established a healthy cycle of natural substances.
The biological chain can also be understood as the food chain of nature, which forms the phenomenon of "everything drops everything" in nature and maintains the natural quantity balance between species.
Humans and nature are also linked through the food chain. People's food mainly comes from plants and animals. Animals and plants grow by getting nutrients from the natural environment. If these animals and plants contain environmental pollution, it will be dangerous for people to eat them. Take aquatic fish as an example. If there is mercury pollution in nature, some microorganisms in the soil can convert mercury into organic mercury, and fish will store organic mercury in their bodies after eating such microorganisms. When people eat such fish, mercury will enter human nerve cells, and people will get terrible Minamata disease. Minamata disease is the most typical example of human environmental pollution, and pollutants eventually enter the human body through the food chain, seriously endangering people's health.
From an ecological point of view
Nature has a relatively balanced biological chain, even if it has been transformed by human beings, such as cities, villages and even farmland.
For a long time, without human intervention and destruction, the biological chain will gradually become balanced.
And in a certain relative time.
Based on the above theories, the number of stray cats in Yantai seems to be quite large, but it should still be in the biological chain in recent days.
In a relatively balanced period, cats have better living environment, breeding conditions and food sources (including mice and people).
Food) and so on.
There is no need for human intervention or destruction of this balance (in essence, it should be "no rights").
Moreover, if it is maliciously destroyed, it may cause the biological chain to break and some vicious consequences will appear.
This is also called "obeying God's will" and "letting nature take its course".
Benefits of biodiversity:
Biology provides food, fiber, wood, medicinal materials and a variety of industrial raw materials for human beings, and provides ecological service functions such as maintaining soil fertility, ensuring water quality and regulating climate. It concerns the well-being of human beings and the integrity of culture. Biodiversity includes three parts. The first is biology, including the genes it carries. The second is that creatures do not exist in isolation in nature, but have a very close relationship with the surrounding environment. This relationship is called ecosystem or ecological complex, including ecosystem and landscape. The third is the sum of various ecological processes related to this. These units are all living things, which are maintained by various ecological processes such as energy flow, nutrient circulation and water circulation. If these processes stop, then this unit will also stop.
In fact, biodiversity began to exist millions to tens of millions of years ago. Researcher Mark Ping, deputy director of the Biodiversity Committee of China Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Botany of Chinese Academy of Sciences, pointed out that biodiversity is of great value. First, direct value, such as food, medicine, industrial raw materials and so on. The second is indirect value, which is often ignored by us, such as regulating climate and conserving soil and water.
We often don't pay attention to the value of biodiversity. In recent years, people began to pay attention to this problem. The journal Nature 65438-0997 published an article to evaluate the service value and function of global ecosystem, which quantitatively reflected a qualitative conclusion. What is the economic value of the services provided by the global ecosystem to human beings every year? The conclusion is $33 trillion, and the annual global GDP adds up to about 18 trillion. From 65438 to 0998, the scientific advisory group of the President of the United States made a report on "Living with Life", which talked about the role of biodiversity in the process of bio-economic development. This report puts forward a concept-biodiversity is the living capital to support the sustainable development of social economy.
Why has biodiversity been paid attention to in recent years? Because biodiversity is seriously threatened at present. Through research, scientists have found that the extinction rate of species is 100 times or even 1000 times faster than that of nature, which is mainly caused by human activities. In the past, there have been five mass extinctions in geological history, including the familiar dinosaur mass extinction. Scientists believe that we are currently in the sixth period of mass extinction.
Protecting species is best to protect their living environment.
Simply protecting species will eventually fail. The best way to protect species is to protect the living environment.
The problem of species extinction involves the relationship between species and biological communities. Ecosystem is the basic unit of long-term survival of species in nature. If we only protect species, it is not easy for this species to survive for a long time. Only by protecting the living environment can we protect this species.
Mark Ping cited the example of Biosphere 2 in the United States. "Biosphere 2, built in the desert north of Tucson, Arizona, is a miniature closed artificial ecosystem, and the earth itself is called Biosphere 1. Scientists in the United States think that their understanding of the ecosystem is enough to build an artificial ecosystem, so they set up Biosphere 2 to calculate the speed at which plants fix carbon dioxide and release oxygen, and see how many different vegetation are planted and how much oxygen is produced, so that the proportion of different gas components in the air of the whole biosphere is almost the same as that of the air in nature now. Eight scientists stayed in it for 2 1 month and finally failed. This shows that human beings have not clearly understood the laws of the ecosystem, which is not enough to rebuild an ecosystem. On the other hand, it also shows that we must protect species and only protect the ecosystem in which it lives. "
In fact, human beings don't know what is the best state of species, because the ecosystem is very complex, and there are various relationships, interactions, energy and nutrient cycles among species, including information transmission, and our knowledge is still very limited.
At first, people took animals away to protect them. Later, it was found that the most effective way was to establish a nature reserve to protect not only species but also the living environment.
Nature reserves should improve their quality.
Nature reserves are the most effective way to protect biodiversity. By the end of 2004, China had built 2 194 nature reserves at all levels, accounting for 14.8% of the national territory. Mark Ping pointed out that there is absolutely no problem in the number of nature reserves in China, but the quality needs to be improved.
Mark Ping has managed almost all nature reserves in China, and he knows the status quo of nature reserves in China very well. "National nature reserves are relatively good, and some local nature reserves have problems. Some provincial protected areas that have been established for 20 years have no boundaries now. If you don't even know where the border is, how can you manage it? Many protected areas at or below the county level have only one name, one brand and no managers. I think we should attach great importance to the quality of nature reserves. The development of nature reserves should be changed from quantitative to quality, and we should not blindly pursue how much the number increases and how much the coverage area increases. "
Another expert classified people who hurt nature reserves into two categories: "the poor" and "the rich". "Poor people" are local governments or local residents. For poor farmers, green mountains and green waters are inedible, and any opportunity to live a good life is an irresistible temptation. In Ganjiahu White Haloxylon Nature Reserve, farmers stole medicinal materials, spared every plant and dug the reserve full of holes. Strictly speaking, the enemy of nature reserves is the poor, not the poor. The "rich" are often foreign consortia or companies. Their occupation of protected areas is often 50 or 70 years. They often carry out predatory development for the purpose of maximizing interests.
Obviously, the effectiveness of ecological protection is closely related to the degree of economic development. In economically developed areas such as Guangdong and Zhejiang, all the funds needed for nature reserves are included in the provincial financial budget, and the ecological protection is good. Except for one national protected area in the western region, which is managed by the central government, all the others are owned by local governments, and the ecological protection ability is relatively weak.
The loss of genetic resources in developing countries is huge.
Before 1972, when the United Nations discussed the living environment of human beings, the principle of attribution of genetic resources did not appear in international laws and treaties, and genetic resources were regarded as the common wealth of all mankind. Because the acquisition and utilization of genetic resources only need to collect a small number of samples, genetic resources have a characteristic different from oil and other mineral resources, that is, they can be easily obtained for free. Multinational companies and research institutions collect genetic resources from various countries, especially developing countries. For example, in the Green Revolution in 1960s, plant genetic resources were used to cultivate new crop varieties for free.
Xue Dayuan, a researcher at Nanjing Institute of Environmental Sciences, State Environmental Protection Administration, who has been engaged in research on biological science and biodiversity protection for many years, bluntly pointed out that developed countries did not give priority to the transfer of technologies using genetic resources to developing countries on the pretext that technologies using genetic resources were mastered and developed by private companies and protected by intellectual property rights.
In order to protect their rich biological gene resources, some developing countries have taken or are taking corresponding measures. India is one of the countries rich in biological genetic resources and natural diversity, and has done a lot of work in protecting its genetic resources. After the United States granted the rice technology company "Basmati" rice patent, the Indian government believed that the rice technology company's patent application for "Basmati" rice infringed its traditional knowledge and said it would sue the patent. Because "Basmati" rice refers to rice products that farmers in northern Indian states and parts of Pakistan have planted for centuries.
China is rich in genetic resources and one of the countries with the richest biodiversity in the world. There are 599 species of terrestrial ecosystems, including 32,800 species of higher plants and17,300 species of endemic higher plants. There are more than 6,300 species of vertebrates and 667 endemic species. There are 56 ethnic groups with a population of 65.438+0.3 billion, especially in some isolated places for a long time, which has great genetic research value. These rich resources are the unique conditions for China to develop biotechnology industry. How to protect China's rich biological gene resources from being plundered by developed countries is a problem that we must pay attention to.
1998 the interim measures for the management of human genetic resources jointly formulated by the Ministry of science and technology and the Ministry of health is also the first regulation on the protection of genetic resources promulgated in China.
China's biodiversity is facing a crisis.
Wan Bentai, director of the Natural Ecology Department of the State Environmental Protection Administration, said that China is one of the countries with the richest biodiversity in the world.
China is rich in species diversity, with about 30,000 kinds of higher plants. Biological species are highly unique, with a large number of endemic species and relic species, such as giant panda, baiji dolphin and Metasequoia glyptostroboides. The origin of biota is ancient, such as conifers in the Late Paleozoic. Among the 7 existing families in the world, China accounts for 6 families. There are rich economic varieties, including more than 2238 kinds of medicinal plants 1 1000, and important ornamental flowers originating in China.
China's biodiversity is being seriously threatened. Mark Ping pointed out that if measured by the indicators of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Animals and Plants, "the Convention listed 640 species at that time, and 156 species can be found in China, with a very high proportion. About 200 species have become extinct; In recent years, about 5,000 species of plants are on the verge of extinction; About 398 species of vertebrates are also endangered. In addition, 40% of the ecosystem in China is in a very serious state of degradation, and the human destruction of various development and construction continues, and the survival of species is threatened; The harm of alien invasive species is becoming more and more serious, and the biological safety management needs to be strengthened urgently; The loss of biological genetic resources is prominent and the protection and management are not in place; The biodiversity in the western region urgently needs to take rescue protection measures. "
According to Mark Ping's analysis, two of them are China's national conditions that deserve our attention. First, China has a large population, about 70% of which is in rural areas, so it is very dependent on biodiversity. Second, China is one of the few countries with the fastest economic development in recent years, and economic development has put great pressure on the environment.
Qian, a researcher at the Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, believes that publicity and education should be strengthened to solve the problem of serious damage to biodiversity. After retirement, he joined the lecture group of old scientists of Chinese Academy of Sciences, preaching the significance of biodiversity protection everywhere, and promoting the promotion of the public's concept of biodiversity protection. He also proposed that we should not only educate teenagers, but also change the ideas of adults, especially leaders. "Not only primary and secondary school students, but more importantly, tell cadres and leaders at all levels that they have power in their hands. If we pay more attention to biodiversity protection, it will be more effective to solve it. "
There are so many living environments for living things that I can only list a few.
Man: an animal with wide adaptability. Because the brain is developed, it can expand its adaptability with the help of inventions. Living in an environment of MINUS 30 degrees Celsius to 50 degrees Celsius.
Rats: live in places where food and hard objects can be easily found to grind their teeth, such as channels and garbage dumps.
Rice: adapted to the hot environment. Therefore, rice is the staple food of many people in warm areas.
Earthworms: Because they breathe through the skin, they must live in wet soil.
Ant: Social animals must live in high and dry environments, such as trees and walls.
Wheat: Wheat is the staple food of the people in the north, and the climate in the north is dry, so wheat lives in dry land.
Lion: Living in the savanna of Africa, where there are wild horses, bison and other foods.
Cockroach: Living in the kitchen, where the food and condiments are all cockroach food.
Ascaris: It is a parasite that lives in human intestines.
Mosquitoes: Living in stagnant water, because mosquito larvae are born in water, male mosquitoes look for food in the water.