This is why diversity matters. So as you can see by the food web at the bottom of this post there is an entire of community of organisms. So lets say that a virus that is carried by rats mutates to be able to infect rabbits. Now this virus has infected 75% of the rat population but they don't know it because it's only fatal to rabbits. So once everything is said and done 2/3 of the rabbit pop bit the dust and that is going to have ramifications on the entire web. So the species that will see a drop in pop is the Wildcat, Jackal, and Lion pop. While that is happening the mouse pop will go up and eat most pf the producers that will cause the goat pop to decrease. But the owl, snake and kite pop will increase. Now not all the rabbit pop died out, and that is because the survivors ( and for this situation to happen all the rats were infected and all the rabbits at the rats) had a gene mutation that mace them immune to the virus. So the rabbits repopulate and humans begin hunting the extra of the owls, snakes and kites and peace is restored.
So now here is another example of biodiversity. Now we will talk about moths. So there is a pop of moths that have light wings and the uses there wings to blend into the light bark of trees in this area. But there are a mutation that makes some moths have black wings. However this is the industrial revolution and coal is being burnt near this ecosystem that covered the trees in black soot. And now the shoe is on the other foot the mutation actually now is an advantage and those moths go and repopulate while the other moths leave to other ecosystems or die off. And that is the story of the peppered moth one of the most famous examples of biodiversity.
Sources
http://www.millerandlevine.com/km/evol/Moths/moths.html
1st image http://images.tutorvista.com/content/ecosystem/food-web-forest.jpeg
2nd image http://katiephd.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/pepps.jpg
Notes:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1PrNiLz6R01lUx2QuuRlKUBg-gOMIkYH5DPKZzMSb1pY/edit?usp=sharing
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