1. Tardigrade
  2. Question
  3. Biology
  4. Which of the following hypothesis suggests that ecosystems are like aeroplanes where flight safety (ecosystem functioning) may or may not be compromised, depending upon which species are being lost?

Question Error Report

Thank you for reporting, we will resolve it shortly

Back to Question

Q. Which of the following hypothesis suggests that ecosystems are like aeroplanes where flight safety (ecosystem functioning) may or may not be compromised, depending upon which species are being lost?

Biodiversity and Conservation

Solution:

Rivet popper hypothesis suggests that the ecosystems are like aeroplanes, where flight safety (ecosystem fuctioning) may or may not be compromised.
This hypothesis assumes the ecosystem to be an aeroplane and the species to be rivets joining all the parts together.
If every passenger starts popping a rivet to take home (resulting in species extinction), it may not affect flight safety initially (proper ecosystem functioning), but with time as more and more rivets are removed, the plane will become dangerously weak over a period of time specially if key rivets (keystone species) are removed.