Mention four significant services that a healthy forest ecosystem provide.
OR
Substantiate with help of one example that in an ecosystem mutualists (i) tend to coevolve and (ii) are also one of the major causes of biodiversity loss.

Explanation

Healthy forest ecosystem provides following services :
(i) Purify air and water.
(ii) Mitigate droughts and floods.
(iii) Cycle nutrients and generate fertile soils.
(iv) Provide wild life habitat and maintain biodiversity.
(v) Pollinate crops and provide storage site for carbon.
(vi) Provide aesthetic, cultural and spiritual values.
OR
Mutualist are the organisms which benefit each other and are dependent on each other for their survival.
(i) Since, the two organisms are dependent on each other they tend to co-evolve. The evolution of the flower and its pollinator species are tightly linked with one other. Example many species of fig trees, there is a tight one-to-one relationship with the pollinator species of wasp.
(ii) If one of the mutualist organism such as either fig or wasps number goes down drastically then other's population will also be drastically affected. This is one of the major cause of diversity loss.