Why should biomedical scientists care about biodiversity?

The ecological tradition is different: ecologists emphasise the diversity of their organisms, and many ecologists would argue that their organism is ‘unique’ because it exhibits adaptations to its environment. This uniqueness is encapsulated in the Linnaean binomial nomenclature: this label, by definition, establishes that a group of organisms is distinct enough from their relatives. Sticking the correct label on an organism can be important; for instance, the discovery that the medicinal leech is not Hirudo medicinalis, rather H. verbena [2], may lead to new research in natural populations of H. medicinalis for compounds that are more effective anticoagulants, painkillers and anti-inflammatory drugs than the existing ones. But conservation biologists are also to blame for failing to embrace biomedical research. Conservation biology focuses on ecological processes, and rarely brings in tools, approaches and results from the vast biomedical literature. This perspective is now beginning to change, as evidenced by recent reviews emphasising the biodiversity resources that benefitted biomedical science, and the significance of healthy ecosystems in hampering spread of pathogens and infectious diseases [3,4], and by the re-naming of the former Wildlife Trust in the United States as the EcoHealth Alliance. Biodiversity can have immense impact on health, social life and finances of humans, and when research agencies need to justify their spending as being relevant to human well-being, the biomedical use of plants, microbes and animals is one of the underutilised justifications. Only a fraction of the Earth’s species has been named, let alone studied in detail. The majority of the undescribed organisms comprise the bacteria, Achaea, microeukaryotes (fungi, nematodes, algae and others) and arthropods, many of which could be of great practical importance for humans. At the present rate of discovery and description, however, many species will vanish before they are discovered. Therefore, biomedical scientists have an immense task of joining systematists, evolutionary biologists and ecologists discovering the processes underpinning the tree of life. There are many reasons why humans should care about biodiversity and its loss: species and their genes, Why should biomedical scientists care about biodiversity?