For decades, scientific studies have continued to reveal the many values of biodiversity for human health and survival.  In 2011, a benchmark study published in the Journal Nature offered an example proof that biodiversity helps ecosystems to withstand pressures such as pollution.

The study conducted by Brad Cardinale, an ecologist at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, used 150 artificial streams in his lab to examine how the number of algae species in a habitat affects the speed at which the pollutant nitrate is removed from the water.

Its key finding is one that our team at Trout Headwaters has been implementing across the U.S. for decades.  A diversity of stream habitat features (like riffles, pools, backwaters, instream structures, undercut banks) are critical to the diversity of a stream’s inhabitants, and along with those inhabitants vital to the overall stability, integrity and resiliency of the ecosystems they serve.

Cardinale’s models mimicked a variety of habitat features. When he removed the niche opportunities, making the stream habitats uniform, biodiversity no longer had an impact on nitrate (pollutant) uptake. Indeed, the biodiversity actually decreased, and a single species came to dominate each stream. “This work shows that environmental heterogeneity can’t be left out of the equation,” says Cardinale.

The study concludes that biodiversity may help to buffer natural ecosystems against the ecological impacts of nutrient pollution. Read the journal abstract in Nature http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v472/n7341/full/nature09904.html