Keystone species and their relevance in biodiversity conservation: A review

Keystone species has greater influence on community characteristics relative to its abundance. Such species play a critical role in maintaining the structure and integrity of an ecological community, affecting many other organisms in an ecosystem and helping to determine the types and number of various other species in the community. An ecosystem may not survive if a keystone species decline or go extinct, even though that species was a small part of the ecosystem by measures of biomass or productivity. Keystone species positively influence biodiversity and play an important role in the conservation of biodiversity. In this paper, efforts have been made to review the role of keystone species in conservation of biodiversity and the management and protection of keystone species that can help in stabilizing the entire biological community.