Biodiversity refers to the abundance of distinct life species in a certain area. This term not only captures the dynamic nature of the relationships between organisms in an ecosystem, but it also encapsulates the beautiful cyclical structure. However, just like many other things in the world, this sacred system has been utterly threatened by human activity, leading to biodiversity loss. In this article, we will be examining the 6 major factors that lead to this phenomenon.
Habitat Destruction
Habitat Destruction is arguably the most threatening factor to biodiversity loss. As the name suggests, it means the physical destruction of an organism’s habitat. It is an umbrella term for many problems such as deforestation, ocean acidification, soil erosion, soil degradation, etc. Deforestation is the most detrimental phenomenon to habitat destruction, because the rainforests are the most biodiverse biomes in the world. Cutting down trees just means we are removing homes for birds and species that reside on and inside the trees, as well as a layer of canopy for the other organisms.
Invasive Species
This is one of the most challenging problems that ecologists face. Invasive species are organisms that have first originated from another region of the world, but have brought into another area of the world and are causing problems in that local food web. These species are usually characterized by its ability to reproduce at extremely fast rates, its ability to consume one species in a food web and its lack of a natural predator in the local ecosystem. These features allow them to chip away at a local food web with repeated successes, causing an ecosystem to go unbalanced and therefore losing biodiversity.
Population Growth
As the human population continues to rise to the eight-billions, the demand for natural resources also increases. The unsustainable methods that humans go about extracting these resources from nature poses a threat to biodiversity.
Pollution
Pollution perhaps could seem as the most obvious factor of biodiversity. There are different forms of pollution: air pollution, sound pollution, light pollution, water pollution, etc. Pollution affects the biodiversity of a local environment, because it involves the disruption of nature through human activity.
Climate Change
Climate change is also an umbrella term for many of the negative environmental issues that could fall into the aforementioned categories. In essence, it dives deeper into the different direct and indirect impacts of air pollution. One of the major problems of the abundance of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are icebergs melting, which is also connected to sea level rise, and ocean acidification. This places significant stress on the animals that are living in the affected biomes.
Overexploitation
The last major factor of biodiversity loss is overexploitation. Overexploitation of animals in recent years has been an increasingly relevant problem. You may have heard of the poaching of birds, elephant tusks and shark fins. Overexploiting one specific animal or species can be extremely detrimental to the local biodiversity, because animals such as sharks have a significant role in the food web to keep the ecosystem healthy. The overexploitation of these animals places great stress on the other species and the environment.
Work Cited
American Museum of Natural History. (2014). What is Biodiversity? Why Is It Important? | AMNH. [online] Available at: https://www.amnh.org/research/center-for-biodiversity-conservation/what-is-biodiversity [Accessed 10 Jul. 2024].s
AP ENVIRONMENTAL. (2024). Day 5: 9.10. [online] Available at: https://mhsapes.weebly.com/day-5-910.html#. [Accessed 10 Jul. 2024].
Ox.ac.uk. (2019). OXFORD LAUNCHES BIODIVERSITY PLAN TO HELP ORGANISATIONS. [online] Available at: https://www.alumni.ox.ac.uk/quad/article/oxford-launches-biodiversity-plan-help-organisations [Accessed 10 Jul. 2024].
Royal Society. (2024). How does the growing global population affect biodiversity? | Royal Society. [online] Available at: https://royalsociety.org/news-resources/projects/biodiversity/how-does-the-growing-global-population-and-increasing-consumption-affect-biodiversity/. [Accessed 10 Jul. 2024].
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