One Health
Rebecca A. Krimins in Learning from Disease in Pets, 2020
Biodiversity encompasses the diversity of all living things: animals and plants, microbes, their genes, and their ecosystems—terrestrial, marine, or other aquatic ecosystems—to include the diversity within and between species and ecosystems.67–69 It is the “web of life”.68 Intact functioning ecosystems provide us with numerous benefits such as food, raw materials (e.g., timber), and medicines. It’s estimated that as much as 80% of people living in rural areas of developing countries rely on plant-based traditional medicine and that three-quarters of top-ranking prescription drugs contain plant-derived compounds.70 Ecosystems act as a carbon sink to combat rising global CO2 levels. They provide us with fresh water, filtering it and regulating its flows, and aid in drought resistance.67 Ecosystems moderate extreme weather events, provide air and climate regulation, nutrient cycling, photosynthesis, support soil formation, reduce erosion, and promote pollination. We obtain significant mental, aesthetic, spiritual, recreational, and physical benefits from natural places.71 No matter how large or miniscule the species, the complex interactions between them create successful ecosystems on which we are dependent. Such rich biodiversity and healthy ecosystems are imperiled by human-driven exploitation and transformation.
Trade in Indian Medicinal Plants
T. Pullaiah, K. V. Krishnamurthy, Bir Bahadur in Ethnobotany of India, 2017
India has one of the oldest, richest and most diverse cultural traditions associated with the use of medicinal and aromatic plants. The country has a great heritage of medicinal plants use dating back to the early Vedic period. Like in many other indigenous cultures of civilizations across the world, Indian indigenous communities have possessed/accumulated vast knowledge on multifarious uses of plants and other natural resources found around them. By empirical reasoning and experimentation, the indigenous societies have developed their own unique wealth of knowledge pertaining to conservation and sustainable use of plants, animals and other natural resources. The ancient Indians had an incredible knowledge about several plants, which they utilized in so many ways for meeting their day-to-day requirements of life. Medicinal plants constituted one of the major groups of plant resources used by Indians since four millennia. Biodiversity provides number of essential natural services such as food production, soil fertility, climate regulation, carbon storage that are foundation of human well-being. It also provides building blocks for sustainable food, health and livelihood security systems. It is the feedstock for the biotechnology industry and climate resilient farming system.
Environment and health
Sally Robinson in Priorities for Health Promotion and Public Health, 2021
The concept of sustainability recognises that the natural systems on earth, the ecosystems, are interconnected and resources are finite. There is concern that the way people are using the earth’s resources is leading to a deterioration of the natural environment. This is fast reaching an ecological ‘tipping point’ which will make it harder for all living things to survive (Koons, 2012). Biodiversity, a variety of plants and animals, is vital for maintaining healthy ecosystems. For biodiversity to thrive, it requires clean air, soil and water and, in turn, these supply the nourishment needed by all living things. As these become disrupted or depleted, the ecosystems become imbalanced, and eventually clean air, soil, water, and then food, land security and energy become scarce. Human conflicts are likely to erupt over highly prized commodities and inequalities in health will widen.
The role of oral microbiome in periodontitis under diabetes mellitus
Published in Journal of Oral Microbiology, 2022
Han Qin, Guangyue Li, Xiaohui Xu, Chuangwei Zhang, Wenjie Zhong, Shihan Xu, Yuanyuan Yin, Jinlin Song
The concept of loss of biodiversity indicates a decline of richness, numbers and distributing evenness of species in a biological community, which may eventually lead to the breakdown of an ecosystem [26,27]. Several studies have reported that loss of biodiversity in dental caries is associated with the severity of the disease [28–33]. However, changes in microbial biodiversity remain controversial in periodontitis with some studies reporting loss of biodiversity in disease [34–38] and others indicating the opposite [39–41]. The latter proposed that the increased microbial diversity in periodontitis is due to the increased amount of nutrients derived from host’s tissue degradation in inflammation [39,40]. In addition, there are also reports indicating no significant difference in oral microbial biodiversity between the healthy individuals and the patients with periodontitis [42,43]. The discrepancy of the results may be attributed to differences in studying methods such as sequencing methods, sequencing region, sequencing depth and sampling sites (periodontal pocket depths) [17,39,44].
Reconceptualizing Autism: An Alternative Paradigm for Social Work Practice
Published in Journal of Progressive Human Services, 2018
Jolynn L. Haney
Within an ecological framework, diversity can be used to conceptualize and contextualize autistic differences. Based on studies of biodiversity, two types of diversity exist in nature: vertical and horizontal (Loreau, 2010). Vertical diversity is related to the notion of food chains, “directional paths of trophic energy or, equivalently, sequences of links that start with basal species, such as producers of fine organic matter, and end with consumer organisms” (Martinez, 1991, p. 370). Therefore, vertical diversity implies a hierarchy of power and control among differing elements of a population. This type of diversity also incorporates value judgments determined by placement (i.e., rank) on a continuum. In the study of human diversity, vertical denotes superiority for members of the population who meet acceptable standards of behavior (Awbrey, 2007). The implication is that ranking lower in the hierarchy is due to deficit. The driving force of vertical diversity is the recognition of differences within the larger group without sacrificing the integrity and control of the dominant group (Awbrey, 2007).
Transforming Power Through Cultural Humility in the Intercultural Contact Zone of Art Therapy
Published in Art Therapy, 2023
Lynn Kapitan
In the natural world, the contact zone between two habitats is known as an ecotone (Risser, 1995; Seidman, 2009). The transitional borderland between land and sea, as one example, produces the unique configurations of the intertidal, the wetland, and the estuary. Each is a biodiversity crossroads containing resilient lifeforms that tap resources from adjacent habitats to thrive in the particular environmental conditions of their overlap. Ecotones may also give rise to hybrids, such as the mangrove that negotiates the stark interface of air and water. To ground itself in an environment of continual disturbance, characterized by flooding, tides, and cyclones, a mangrove’s roots are arranged horizontally as a system of intertwining stems. When broken at any spot, they grow anew. The resilient, adaptable mangrove offers art therapists a potent image of the creative innovation, connectivity, and flourishing that can occur in liminal, in-between spaces.
Related Knowledge Centers
- DNA
- Extinction
- Genetic Variability
- Microbial Mat
- Genetics
- Species
- Base Pair
- Carbon
- Gene
- Last Universal Common Ancestor