How can biodiversity be affected by altering a habitat

Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. Debt for Nature Swap. Many individuals do not think about the damage they are causing on biodiversity.

However, it is important as humans to realize the impact we have on biodiversity because without it, there would be no human existence. If no changes are made in the ways humans use resources on earth, there will continue to be a degradation of biodiversity until human lives can no longer be sustained. Humans affect biodiversity by their population numbers, use of land, and their lifestyles, causing damage to habitats for species.

It is important for humans to realize how their actions affect biodiversity and the importance of maintaining what biodiversity is left on the earth. Through proper education, and by demanding that governments make decisions to preserve biodiversity, the human population will be able to sustain life on earth longer.

Biodiversity is the term that is given to describe the variety of life on earth and the natural patterns it forms. It is the result of evolution, natural processes, and human influence. Secretariat , Biodiversity involves diversity of genes within a species, of species within ecosystems, and of ecosystems in the biosphere Frequently , Biodiversity is not determined by only one factor, but rather many factors that differ spatially and temporally Climate , Although many humans may not realize how important biodiversity is to them, it is clear that without it humans would not be able to exist.

Each day humans use 40, species, most of which go totally unnoticed Eldredge , Simply put, there would be no population of humans without biodiversity. The most obvious indicator of biodiversity is the number of species on the planet. Currently there are 1. To look at the loss of biodiversity, the number of extinctions of species should be examined.

This rate is 50 times the natural rate of extinction and is expected to increase in the coming years Sherbinin , The extinction rate is of great concern because once a species is extinct, there is no chance of ever getting that species back on the planet. Three main problems that cause species extinction are: habitat loss, degradation, and fragmentation Noss et al , Habitat loss is described as the complete destruction of a habitat. An example of habitat loss would be logging of a forest.

Habitat degradation is when a habitat diminishes to a point where it can no longer support biological communities Effects , An example of this would be habitats that are polluted by industry. Habitat fragmentation is described as a habitat that is broken into smaller discontinuous segments of land for development Mapping , An example of this would be putting a road in the middle of a habitat.

All three of these problems that result in species extinction are directly related to human influence. There is no clear way of determining the total impact that humans are making on biodiversity; however, it is obvious that many actions by humans are causing a decrease in biodiversity.

To determine the total impact that humans are making on a given environment, the area of productive land and water needed to produce the item that is being consumed and the need to account for the waste being generated by humanity must all be taken into account according to management and production practices in use during that time Wackernagel et al.

Direct or indirect actions by humans have resulted in the decrease of biodiversity. The Convention of Biological Diversity states that there are both indirect and direct human drivers.

Some of the indirect human drivers are demographic, economic, sociopolitical, scientific and technological, and cultural and religious factors. Some of the direct human drivers are changes in local land use and land cover, species introductions or removals, external inputs, harvesting, air and water pollution, and climate change Climate , In the next 50 years it is expected that humans will seriously impact percent of land in developing countries.

This is a result of growth in population and in over consumption of natural resources Mapping , The population of humans is, what many consider, the root of the biodiversity problem Eldredge , The number of humans on earth, as of July , is at 6. The increase in human inhabitants causes a problem because with it comes a need to convert natural habitats to land for human consumption. One way that the humans have been able to sustain their growth is by converting natural habitats to fields where foods can be produced.

In the United States there is a direct relationship between the loss of forests to the increase in cropland Dobson , Internationally, there is half a hectare of tropical forest disappearing to farmland every second. One of the potential dangers of decreasing the amount of natural habitats remaining is that species will no longer be present on earth. This directly affects agriculture because many of the species that are being destroyed for croplands may have been used for genetically enhancing crop products Frequently , In this manner, the increase in agricultural land actually harms our agricultural future.

Human actions have also played a role in climate change, which is also causing great danger for biodiversity. The change in climate is due to increased atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, which causes increased land and ocean temperatures, and changes in precipitation and sea level rise. With the change in climate also comes a change in species.

Climate affects the timing of reproduction and migration, the length of growing seasons, species distributions and population size, and the frequency of pest and disease outbreaks.

It is also expected that the change in climate in the 21 st century will have a much higher rate than the past 10, years and create an even bigger impact on biodiversity Climate , It is expected that 80 percent of biologically rich regions will suffer great losses of plant and animal species because of global warming.

The rate of change of habitats is expected to increase up to ten times due to global warming Sherbinin , Biodiversity affects everyone to varying degrees. People that live in poverty depend heavily upon nature to provide them with resources to live. In third world countries logging has become a common activity of the poor. It is a huge problem in many developing countries because it is destroying natural habitats, yet it seems to be one of the only ways that people can make enough money to support their families.

The New York Times recently ran an article about individuals in Malawi illegally cutting down trees in order to make enough money for food. One individual states, "We have no money to raise our families. We have nowhere to run, nothing else to do. So we have to cut the trees to feed our families. The current rate of deforestation in Malawi is 2.

Similarly, wildfires in the thickly wooded forests and earthquakes significantly disrupt the life of the organisms and thus affecting biodiversity. Volcanoes frequently wreck animals and plants in the adjoining areas.

Epidemics occasionally wipe out vast majority of the population. The occurrence of epidemics in nature is normally restricted to certain population of animal or plant since the pathogen is usually species specific [30]. The people have profoundly modified the environment. Several factors discussed in the review such as pollution, hunting, invasive species, habitat loss and degradation, exploitation of natural resources etc. The phenomenon of biodiversity loss has severe negative impact on all the living organisms including human beings.

It is our responsibility to save our planet and take some crucial steps to prevent the loss of biodiversity. This is highly significant if we wish to secure an inhabitable planet for next generation and for all the plants and animals. Order for reprints. Toggle navigation. ISSN: Author and article information. DOI : Keywords : Biodiversity; Habitat; Climate change; Overexploitation.

Open J Plant Sci 6 1 : DOI: Main article text. Introduction Biodiversity in most simple terms means the diversity of life. Principal causes for the loss of variety of life on earth The numerous factors are responsible for the loss of Biodiversity Figure 1 such as pollution, habitat loss, hunting, introduction of invasive species, overexploitation of preferred species, climate change, and natural disasters. Wilson E O ed. J Ethnobiology Ethnomedicine 3: Environmental Research Letters Environ Res Applied and Environmental Microbiology — Sustain Water Resour Manag 2: Open Journal of Plant Science 3: Nature communications 7: Current Biology RR J Plant Res Proc Biol Sci Glob Chang Biol Journal of applied Ecology Biological Conservation Mammal Review Nature Communications 9: Bioscience Biodiversity Conservation J Ecol Environ Resource Econ Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Nature Education Knowledge 3: This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

View Similar Articles. Share your thoughts and experiences. Article Alerts Subscribe to our articles alerts and stay tuned. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4. Quick Enquiry. Submit your next article Peer techz Publications, also join of our fulfilled creators. Submit a Manuscript. Precipitation patterns have changed spatially and temporally, and global average sea level rose 0.

By the end of the century, climate change and its impacts may be the dominant direct driver of biodiversity loss and changes in ecosystem services globally. While the growing season in Europe has lengthened over the last 30 years, in some regions of Africa the combination of regional climate changes and anthropogenic stresses has led to decreased cereal crop production since The scenarios developed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change project an increase in global mean surface temperature of 2.

Harm to biodiversity will grow worldwide with increasing rates of change in climate and increasing absolute amounts of change. In contrast, some ecosystem services in some regions may initially be enhanced by projected changes in climate such as increases in temperature or precipitation , and thus these regions may experience net benefits at low levels of climate change.

As climate change becomes more severe, however, the harmful impacts on ecosystem services outweigh the benefits in most regions of the world. The balance of scientific evidence suggests that there will be a significant net harmful impact on ecosystem services worldwide if global mean surface temperature increases more than 2o Celsius above preindustrial levels or at rates greater than 0.

Climate change is projected to further adversely affect key development challenges, including providing clean water, energy services, and food; maintaining a healthy environment; and conserving ecological systems and their biodiversity and associated ecological goods and services R Projected changes in climate during the twenty-first century are very likely to be without precedent during at least the past 10, years and, combined with land use change and the spread of exotic or alien species , are likely to limit both the capability of species to migrate and the ability of species to persist in fragmented habitats.

Present-day threats are often multiple and of greater intensity than historical threats. The susceptibility of an ecological community to a given threat will depend on the events of the past that have shaped the current biota.

If the current threats are novel, they will have dramatic effects on populations , since species will lack adaptations. Even if drivers are similar to past drivers climate, for example, has always been variable to some degree , the intensity of some current-day drivers is unprecedented such as the rates and extent of habitat change.

Because exposure to one threat type often makes a species more susceptible to a second, exposure to a second makes a species more susceptible to a third, and so on, consecutive, multiple threats to species may have unexpectedly dramatic impacts on biodiversity S7. Each driver has a characteristic spatial and temporal scale at which it affects ecosystem services and human well-being. Climate change may operate on a spatial scale of a large region; political change may operate at the scale of a nation or a municipal district.

Sociocultural change typically occurs slowly, on a time scale of decades, while economic forces tend to occur more rapidly. Because of the variability in ecosystems , their services, and human well-being in space and time, there may be mismatches or lags between the scale of the driver and the scale of its effects on ecosystem services S7 , SG7.

The fate of declining species and habitats will depend on sources of inertia and the speed of their response to management interventions.

Natural sources of inertia correspond to the time scales inherent to natural systems; for example, recovery of a population cannot proceed more quickly than the average turnover or generation time, and established recovery will often take several generations. On top of this is anthropogenic inertia resulting from the time scales inherent in human institutions for decision-making and implementation. For most systems, these two sources of inertia will lead to delays of years, and more often decades, in slowing and reversing a declining biodiversity trend.

This analysis assumes that the drivers of change could indeed be halted or reversed in the near term. Yet currently there is little evidence that any of the direct or indirect drivers are slowing or that any are well controlled at the large to global scale.

More significantly, we have net yet seen all of the consequences of changes that occurred in the past C4 , R5 , S7, S The delay between a driver affecting a system and its consequences for biodiversity change can be highly variable. In the relatively well studied case of species extinctions, habitat loss is known to be a driver with particularly long lag times.

In studies of tropical forest bird species the time from habitat fragmentation to species extinction has been estimated to have a half-life of decades to hundreds of years.

Overall, these results suggest that about half of the species losses may occur over a period of to 1, years. Therefore, humans have the opportunity to deploy active habitat restoration practices that may rescue some of the species that otherwise would have been in a trajectory toward extinction. Notwithstanding this, habitat restoration measures will not be likely to save the most sensitive species, which will become extinct soon after habitat loss C4.

This summary is free and ad-free, as is all of our content. You can help us remain free and independant as well as to develop new ways to communicate science by becoming a Patron! Languages: English [en]. Previous Question. Next Question. What factors lead to biodiversity loss? The source document for this Digest states: Biodiversity change is caused by a range of drivers. The source document for this Digest states: Biodiversity change is most clearly a consequence of the direct drivers.

Global economic activity increased nearly sevenfold between and S7. SDM , and in the MA scenarios it is projected to grow a further three- to sixfold by