We must prevent the consequences of biodiversity loss, not just save species.

Consider what Covid-19 tells us.

Viruses often have a single host species. They specialize with adaptions that make it harder to infect another species. No problem, as long their host is plentiful.

But some viruses infect many different species, like Influenza A, which infects birds and mammals. Even specialized viruses can change to become generalists. With short generation times, large populations, and lots of mutations, change happens quick for a virus. Natural selection works fast.

Organisms that reproduce sexually, like us mammals, have genes strung between long, long stretches of DNA that controls when and how the genes work. Virus DNA (or RNA) is short and mostly just genes. Mutations in our DNA mostly happens in between genes. Mutations in virus DNA or RNA probably hits a gene. Which changes output.

Now introduce biodiversity loss, the extinction of many species, happening now. As viruses lose hosts, most can't suddenly infect other animals or people. But with so many that can change so quickly, viruses will emerge that are good at hopping between species.

Some viruses favor one type of cell to infect. Others infect many types of cells in their host. Researchers have found these are also good at jumping between different species. The difference between cell types isn't always more than the difference between different species.

Biodiversity loss gives viruses good at infecting many different cell types an advantage. They will become more common, because they are better at infecting new species.

SARS CoV2, which causes Covid-19, jumps between species. It came from bats, but probably through intermediary animals half-wild, half-domestic. It infects these and humans, and deer and other wildlife. One research group suspected the Omicron variant jumped from people to rodents then back again. Its unusual mutations are those seen in many rodent viruses. SARS CoV2 is a virus good at jumping, which should become common when so many species disappear.

Biodiversity loss needs to be something we plan for. Maybe we should rescue or maintain highly diverse, but geographically limited, ecosystems. Instead of trying to save a popular species at risk, maybe we need to protect and encourage evolutionary forces that dampen consequences of land use change and climate change. Or maybe not. This needs to be researched, and also debated, explained, understood.

We know species vanish, but it remains on the back burner. That's partly because most of us haven't seen a great reduction in species over our lifetimes, or over the last 10 years. The change happens in spurts, as well as gradually, and many of the most visible animals are already gone.

That's why showing the real wild west matters. It will help remind us of what we had, and lost. That will make it real now.