Hope you enjoyed the video!
Thanks for watching!

You have remaining on your free trial.
4 Free Lessons Left
Get unlimited access to all videos and lesson plans with a membership.
So you can keep watching more great videos in class, ask your teacher or principal to get a School plan membership.
We hope you enjoyed trying 5 lessons!
Become a member to get full access to our entire library of learning videos, reading material, quiz games, simple DIY activities & more.
Plans & PricingCreate a free account to continue watching
Welcome to Our Science Lessons!
Your subscription is currently only to our math lessons.
5 Free Science Lessons Left
Add Science To My Plan (+$50/yr)We hope you enjoyed sampling 5 Science Lessons!
Your subscription is currently only to our math lessons.
Add Science To My Plan (+$50/yr)0 Free Science Lessons Left
Oops! It looks like your security settings are blocking this video 🙁
If you are on a school computer or network, ask your tech person to whitelist these URLs:
*.wistia.com, fast.wistia.com, fast.wistia.net, embedwistia-a.akamaihd.net
Sometimes a simple refresh solves this issue. If you need further help, contact us.
Create a free account to unlock all content!
Get Full AccessMaintaining Biodiversity

Sorry, student links are only for classroom & school accounts.
Please login to generate a student link.
Generate Student Link
- Show lesson plan & teacher guide
- Show answers to discussion questions
- Show video only
- Allow visiting of other pages
- Hide assessments
What you will learn from this videoWhat you will learn
- Biodiversity describes the number of different kinds of organisms in an ecosystem.
- Scientists measure biodiversity to determine an ecosystem's health.
- Humans depend on healthy ecosystems for food, medicine and clean water.
- Discussion Questions
Before Video
What kinds of resources do humans get from ecosystems?ANSWERHumans get food and natural resources like wood, rock and water from ecosystems.
I see plants, insects, squirrels, deer, turkey, and people.
A keystone species is a plant or animal that has a big effect on an ecosystem, and they are important to ecosystems because they are needed to keep the ecosystem healthy.
We can find out what animals in the ecosystem eat, and we can use it to trace matter cycling and energy flow.
I think algae and other things like plankton get their energy from the Sun.
We can measure the health of an ecosystem by looking at what is living there. Healthy ecosystems usually have different kinds of plants and animals living there.
After Video
Explain why biodiversity in an ecosystem is important.ANSWERBiodiversity in an ecosystem is important because it helps an ecosystem stay healthy.
A sea star is an example of a keystone species, and without it the ecosystem can collapse, like the tide pool example from the video.
Food webs are models of the interactions that happen between the organisms found in the ecosystem. They can be used to explain how matter cycles and energy flows, and it is useful in making predictions about the food resources needed to maintain biodiversity in the ecosystem.
Humans rely on ecosystem biodiversity for things like food, energy, and medicine. For example, humans rely on pollinators like bees to pollinate the crops of food we eat. Without insects, like bees, we wouldn’t have the food we need.
Some humans have jobs that set up areas that protect ecosystems. These protected lands limit human interaction to protect the biodiversity in ecosystems. In the United States, national parks are places that are protected.
Bioindicators, like frogs, are living things that let humans know when something might be wrong in an ecosystem. Bioindicators are important because without them, we might not know something needs to be fixed.
- Vocabulary
- Biodiversity DEFINE
The different organisms living in an ecosystem.
- Ecosystem DEFINE
A community of interacting organisms and their environment. It includes both living and nonliving things.
- Tide pools DEFINE
Shallow pools of seawater that exist as separate bodies of water, usually only during low tide.
- Species DEFINE
A group of organisms that have similar individuals and are able to exchange genes through breeding to produce offspring that are able to reproduce.
- Keystone species DEFINE
A species that is necessary to maintain ecosystem health. Without this species, the ecosystem would change drastically.
- Decomposer DEFINE
A species that is responsible for breaking down dead organisms in an ecosystem.
- Pollutant DEFINE
A substance that pollutes something in the ecosystem (e.g., air, water, soil).
- Bioindicator DEFINE
An organism that can be used to determine ecosystem health. These organisms can serve as a warning signal that something in the ecosystem is changing.
- Extinct DEFINE
When there are no individuals left of a species.
- Conservation biologist DEFINE
A scientist who studies a humans’ impact on ecosystems and helps develop solutions to ecosystem problems.
- Biodiversity DEFINE
- Reading Material
- DIY Activity Guide
- Lesson Plan
- Teacher Guide