THE IMPORTANCE OF THE BIOSPHERE: 10 REASONS - ENVIRONMENT - 2025

The biosphere is of great importance to living things for several reasons: it provides food and raw materials, conserves biological diversity, prevents pollution, and serves as a marker for pollution and climate change.

In the past, the biosphere was a concept reserved only for biologists, but now it has become a notion in common use among the general population. In this way, the biosphere generally refers to the portion of planet Earth that is inhabited by living beings and that is manifestly organized by them.

In reality, the biosphere coincides with the solid surface part of the Earth, which serves as its support and which at the same time is affected by the dynamics of life. This "solid part" includes, in addition to the continental surfaces, the liquid and gaseous envelopes of our planet, whose interactions are vital for the functioning of life on Earth.

It is the Russian chemist Vladimir Verdadjsky (or Vernadsky) who raises for the first time the possibility of a planetary vision that starts from a more functional than descriptive point of view, conceiving the biosphere more than as a substrate, as a complex system organized by their own rules.

This, at the time of its publication in 1929, was relatively novel, especially in contrast to the descriptivist biological positions that prevailed at that time. This idea is currently used in ecology and applied biology and is taken as principle in other biological sciences.

Today the biosphere is understood as a unified system with specific synthetic properties and capabilities that behaves as a large complex living mass with internal relationships on multiple levels.

10 reasons that justify the importance of the biosphere

1- Produces organic matter

Through oxygenic photosynthesis, the production of oxygen and nitrogen that occurs in the biosphere is responsible for virtually all the biochemical processes of organic matter production through the complete carbon cycle, which involves both terrestrial and ocean substrates.

2- Allows life on earth

The biosphere is literally the living layer that covers the earth's surface. This includes the most superficial part of the earth's crust, as well as rivers, seas, lakes, oceans and even the lower part of the atmosphere. The balance between all these parts allows the existence of life on earth, including humans.

3- Provides food and raw materials

Biota, that is, the set of living elements in the biosphere, is the vital component that provides humanity with the raw material it needs to survive: food, fiber and fuel.

4- Clean the environment of toxins

Through the natural cycles of decomposition of biological modification, in the biosphere the planet earth gets rid of toxins and components that, in excess, can be harmful to life. In this way, carbon dioxide, for example, is used in the photosynthesis process and organic waste is reused by biota.

5- It is the substrate of the trophic chain

The trophic chain is the biological chain that exemplifies the flow of energy and nutrients that are established in the different species of an ecosystem. As all living beings inhabit the biosphere, this is the vital element for the survival of the species.

6- They conserve biological diversity

Through biosphere reserves, designated by Unesco as the areas composed of terrestrial, marine and coastal ecosystems, recognized by the UNESCO Program on Man and the Biosphere.

7- Maintains the original environment of indigenous peoples

Societies that have lived in close contact with nature since ancient times need the conservation of the biosphere for their existence.

The participation of local communities in the conservation and preservation of the environment (and the biosphere with it) allows their own survival and the conservation of their original traditions and ways of life.

8- Provides pharmaceutical compounds

In reality, all the compounds used in the pharmaceutical industry today are derived to a greater or lesser extent from compounds that are found naturally in the terrestrial biosphere.

Biological investigations that occur on a recurring basis in areas of high biological density such as Southeast Asia and the Amazon in South America have provided researchers with new elements that have been implemented in pharmaceutical treatments and medicines ranging from chemotherapy to beauty treatments.

9- It can serve as a marker of contamination

The study and control of its composition can function as an efficient and adequate marker to control the levels of terrestrial contamination and verify if in effect public policies and international agreements have had a real and positive impact on the current levels of planetary contamination.

In this way, from the information obtained from the study of the biosphere, historical and perhaps even interregional comparisons can be established that show the changes and variations in the levels and ecosystems affected by pollution.

10- It can help track contaminants

The study of the composition of the biosphere can show exactly what the pollutants caused by anthropogenic action on Earth are and how they act.

In this way, States and international organizations can implement research and public policies that are adapted to the pollutants present in the environment that they intend to preserve.

References

1. Margaler, Ramon (1997): Prologue to the Spanish edition of La biosfera by Vladimir Vernadsky, La Biosfera. Buenos Aires.
2. Vernadsky, Vladimir (1929): The Biosphere. Buenos Aires: Argentaria Foundation..
3. Christopher B. Field, Michael J. Behrenfeld, James T. Randerson, Paul Falkowski (1998): “Primary Production of the Biosphere: Integrating Terrestrial and Oceanic Components”. Science. 281 (5374).
4. Levin, Simon (1998): Ecosystems and the Biosphere as Complex Adaptive Systems. Ecosystems. 1: 431-436.
5. UNESCO (s / f): Biosphere reserves. Available in Spanish at unesco.org.
6. Halfter, Gonzalo (1988): “The concept of biosphere reserve” in Carlos Montaña (ed) Integrated Study of the resources, vegetation, soil and water in the Mapimí biosphere reserve. Institute of Ecology: Mexico DF. Pages 19-45.
7. Dudgeon, D., Arthington, AH, Gessner, MO, Kawabata, ZI, Knowler, DJ, Lévêque, C.,… & Sullivan, CA (2006). Freshwater biodiversity: importance, threats, status and conservation challenges. Biological reviews, 81 (2), 163-182.