Biodiversity: the overlooked source of human health

Abstract

Biodiversity is the measure of the variation of lifeforms in a given ecological system. Biodiversity provides ecosystems with the robustness, stability, and re-silience that sustains them. This is ultimately essential for our survival because we depend on the services that natural ecosystems provide (food, fresh water, air, climate, and medicine). Despite this, human activity is driving an unprece-dented rate of biodiversity decline, which may jeopardize the life-support sys-tems of the planet if no urgent action is taken. In this article we show why biodiversity is essential for human health. We raise our case and focus on the biomedicine services that are enabled by biodiversity, and we present known and novel approaches to promote biodiversity conservation.