Introduction

• Since the 1990s, Biodiversity has become a code word tied to an emerging sense of the environment and its fate.  Biodiversity reflects an understanding that diversity among plants and animals, and diverse interactions are important.  This perspective is best captured in the oft quoted saying attributed, perhaps erroneously, to Chief Seattle in 1852:  “The earth does not belong to man, rather, man belongs to the earth.  All things are connected like the blood that unites us all.  Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it.  Whatever he does to the web he does to himself” (Baker, 1990). 

• Biodiversity provides:
  • ecological services—for example, they might provide protection from floodwaters
  • aesthetic beauty—for example magnificent old growth forests
  • resources for future

• What are the consequences of habitat loss and fragmentation? Both pollinators and herbivores interact with plants, and thereby modify the diversity of entire communities as well as the fates of individual species (Thompson 1996, Kearns & Inouye 1997, Tilman et al. 1997).  Up to 300,000 animal species may visit flowers (Nabhan & Buchmann 1997), and pollinators as diverse as bees, butterflies, and birds are not only influential in shaping species boundaries but affect the likelihood of hybridization and successful fruit production (Johnson & Steiner 2000, Kephart & Theiss 2004, Fenster et al, 2004).

• What happens when we lose one plant or animal species from an environment?  Scientists have helped the public understand that ecological cascades are created when we lose one piece of the interacting web within the environment.  What happens to one plant or animal has a direct effect on other plants and animals that are part of the web of interaction. Scarce pollinators or ineffective pollination can create cascade effects in ecosystems where animals depend on a steady supply of seeds or fruits for raising their young.

• Grasslands prairies are important ecosystems (see refs in attached intro of Conservation,Genetics paper) because they support a rich diversity of species and organisms. Scientists have targeted grasslands for protection as biodiversity hotspots (Anderson & Baskin, Stromberg et al 2001).

• Wetland prairies constitute an important class of grass-dominated ecosystems.
• They are species rich, and they are extraordinarily productive
• They offer critical ecological services such as flood water retention and filtration of pollutants (Baskin 1994, Wilson1998, Zedler 2003).  
• In places like the Willamette Valley of Oregon, they are increasingly rare. Most have been drained for agricultural purposes or urban expansion, resulting in a 57% loss since pre-settlement times (Fromm, pers comm.).
• To read more about the importance of Wetlands, please see the following links:

Given the destruction of a large percentage of wetland prairies, what can scientists and communities do?  Can degraded wetland prairies be restored?  YES, through a process of mitigation, scientists and community leaders can develop plans for increasing the size and vitality of wetlands and thereby enhance the local biodiversity that wetlands provide.