The species diversity is very important for ecosystem. Many ecologists believe that a community with more species is a more stable ecosystem than a community with fewer species. David Tilman conducted long-term ecosystem experiments on plots outside the laboratory and reported that in the plots where there were more species, lesser variation in total biomass was found from year to year. Along with this, it was also concluded from the experiment that increasing diversity increased productivity.
We know very well that rich biodiversity is not only essential for ecosystem health but also essential for the survival of human life on earth. Biodiversity has an impact on the balance of the ecosystem. For example, if the frog species becomes extinct from the Western Ghats, then the mumber of moths, insects, mosquitoes in the ecosystem which it eats, will increase enormously which definitely affect the ecosystem adversely. It really matter to if a few species become extinct? Environmentalist, Paul Ehrlich of Stanford University presented the Rivet Popper hypothesis. He compared the ecosystem to an airplane and thousands of species present in it compared to thousands of rivets of an airplane (Note: All the parts of the aircraft are connected by rivets). If one rivet of the aircraft is broken, then it is possible that there will be no impact on the functioning/safety of the aircraft initially ie. the functioning of the ecosystem for some time. Although it is weakening the aircraft dangerously over a period and if the rivets of the aircraft's wings are removed then the flight safety of aircraft will be under serious threat. In this way, if the main species called key species is destroyed from the ecosystem the balance of the ecosystem will get disturbed and it will have a direct impact on human life. Therefore, it comes to the conclusion that rich biodiversity is very important for ecosystem functioning.