Not a hunter or fisherman? Buy a license anyway if you want to protect rare and threatened life forms in your neighborhood.

That suggestion came last Thursday from Jason Miller, assistant chief of the Biodiversity Division of the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency (TWRA).

Addressing The Rotary Club of McMinnville at its weekly luncheon Thursday, Miller said that a portion of the revenue from Tennessee hunting and fishing licenses supports the work of his small group in studying and protecting some of the rarest aquatic and terrestrial animals on Earth.

The Barrens Top Minnow and the Cumberland Pigtoe Mussel are examples.

Those and other species are found in a narrow geographic range in and close to Warren County, the state biologist told the Rotarians and their guests in the fellowship hall of First Presbyterian Church.

“One of the rarest fish in the world is the Barrens Top Minnow,” whose habitat is centered in western Warren County, he noted.

An unusual species of bats is endangered by the mysterious white nose pathogen and is under government protection at Hubbard’s Cave.

So why are those creatures, not often encountered in the everyday life of humans, so important to the environment?

The ecosystem that supports the apex species—homo sapiens—is stunningly complex with multiple layers of interdependency, Miller explained in a WCPI 913 interview recording after the Rotary luncheon.

Like the widening rings of waves rippling out from a rock tossed in a pond, the extinction—or unchecked expansion—of a seemingly insignificant animal or plant can impact the entire ecosystem, including food supplies.

Southern Middle Tennessee hosts some of the most biologically rich and diverse rivers in the world. Those bodies of water include the Duck, Elk, Collins and Caney Fork, Miller relayed in his Rotary talk.

Before humans were hunting and fishing in this area, geologic conditions set the stage for the remarkable biodiversity of the region.

“This was the perfect Goldilocks environment for diversity,” he observed, as a vast area of what would become the southern United States was at the bottom of shallow sea teaming with various lifeforms.

Fossil records bear witness to the many strange species that long ago evolved into more modern and recognizable species—while many others went extinct.

Miller offers more insights in his half-hour FOCUS interview on McMinnville Public Radio 913-WCPI. The program airs this Saturday at 9:35 a.m.