Life on Earth References

• Illustrates the relationship that human activities have a profound contribution to species extinction

• As the human population grows, species extinction advances in a similar trend

Umesh Babu & Nautiyal, 2015

• The financial system underpins our engagement with nature so changing economic models could stop biodiversity loss

• Financial systems act as an extractive force of nature causing ecosystem decline

• There should be an effort to integrate nature and the financial system to stop species extinction

Atkins & Macpherson (eds.), 2022

• Land use is becoming a global issue driven by needs to provide food, water and sheller to the growing population

• Expansion of croplands and pasture associated with expansion of fertiliser and irrigation lead to salinisation, overgrazing, soil erosion and loss of habitats

• The water balance and water cycle is being disrupted causing droughts, a falling water table, oxygen depletion, blooms and waterborne diseases

• Forests are being lost, net radiation is changing to impact climate as well as transmissions of infectious diseases

• We must assess tradeoffs between human welfare and ecosystems to inform policy action

Foley et al., 2005

• As global agriculture and urban areas hit 5 million hectares, habitat sizes decrease by nearly 20% due to the expansion of human activities

Beyer & Manica, 2020

• There is now an argument for the sixth mass extinction event driven by humans with habitat loss being the biggest problem for biodiversity

• Human predation is an issue as well as introduced species becoming predators, disrupting food webs, pollination, outcompeting native species, hybridisation and genetic dilution

• Disease is also a threat and all are exacerbated by globalisation

Whittaker & Fernandez-Palacios, 2007

• Steep declines are seen in wildlife populations with habitat loss driven by the food system as the main threat

• There is little progress in delivery of global agreements or urgency when we must work collaboratively to transform food, energy and financial systems

• Cumulative impacts of biodiversity loss can trigger larger, faster changes that become self-perpetuating when they reach a tipping point

• Food production is causing habitat loss, unsustainable water usage in land and oceans; energy use is also a main driver of climate change and air pollution

• Economic activities are having large impacts

WWF & ZSL, 2024

• The UK is now one of the most nature-depleted countries on Earth with huge threats on land, oceans and in peatlands

• Agriculture is seeing fertiliser use peak along with overfishing and disease becoming bigger threats

• In Wales, vascular plants show consistent declines due to conversion of grasslands and ammonia emissions kill lichens

• In Scotland, warmer summers and more frequent droughts see species become intolerant of new climates, herbicides see vascular plants decline ad sea pressure put pressure on plankton communities

State of Nature, 2023

• A behaviourally mediated trophic cascade in Yellowstone theorised that as wolves were reintroduced the elk would avoid the risky foraging areas and allow the aspen to regenerate

• The data found that the risk of woolf predation alone was unlikely to alter the degree to which the elk limited aspen, the elk population would have to decline in order to allow the aspen to regenerate

Kauffman et al., 2010

• Ecosystems regulate the Earth’s biogeochemical processes and are key to it’s survival, but human impacts are causing declines in biodiversity and subsequent shifts in the assembly and functioning of ecosystems

• Higher levels of biodiversity act as insurance against environmental fluctuation as they act as a buffer

• The effects of losses on productivity are most felt on small-intermediate scales

• The impacts of diversity loss can impact multiple trophic levels

• A larger number of species is required within ecosystems to ensure stability and biogeochemical stability

Loreau et al., 2001

• Consensus that biodiversity loss reduces efficiency of ecosystems, reduces stability, leads to accelerating change, loss of productivity and can be seen across multiple trophic levels to see extinctions more probable

• Multi-functionality of ecosystems is also threatened by biodiversity loss

• Biodiversity has strongly been correlated with provisioning and regulating services such as fishing yields in the past, we must build on what we know to reduce uncertainties and better serve policy and management

Cardinale et al., 2012

• Biodiversity encompasses all living things currently existing on Earth and is useful as it provides food, materials, medicines and support systems to humans

• It can also be seen as an aesthetic thing for enjoyment

• The defining characteristic of the Anthropocene is enormous species loss and habitat degradation caused by human activities

Cox et al., 2016

• Large wild herbivores are crucial to ecosystems but face dramatic population declines as they are threatened by hunting, land use charges and resource deprivation; their loss can have cascading effects so conservation is key in stalling losses

• Large herbivores act as ecosystem engineers, sources of food, facilitators of life for other herbivores, seed dispersers, nutrient cyclers, control the fire regime, allow small animals to exist as well as being important for human food supplies and tourism related jobs and incomes

Ripple et al., 2015

• The effect of decreasing species richness is to decrease the abundance of the focal group leading to less complete depletion of the resources used by that group

• This influences fluxes of energy within ecological processes so can decrease productivity

• Some species exert stronger controls than others, in very diverse ecosystems this is hard to identify

Cardinale et al., 2006

• Ecosystem ecology addresses the interactions between organisms and their environments as an integrated system to realise the true role of species and ecosystem functioning in supporting human welfare

• Globalisation is seeing biological invasions increase to see Earth’s biota homogenising to alter ecosystems

• Human activities can introduce novel chemicals into the environment which shift feedbacks and often the services human communities depend on

• We must manage and protect ecosystem functions to continue to extract human services from them

Chapin et al., 2002

• The advantage of species diversity has long been seen in improving stability of yields

• There are functional characteristics in ecosystems that are particularly important such as nitrogen fixing legumes

• Within ecosystems there is the idea of the trophic cascade which can make the impacts of losses hard to predict

• Biodiversity allows for multi-functionality as well as stability through the buffer concept, portfolio effect or compensatory dynamic effect

Wilby & Hector, 2008

• The loss of apex predators is a cascading problem due to the impact of top-down forcing on global ecosystems

• The new extinction event is characterised by humans and sees the loss of larger bodied apex predators globally

• It is now understood that there is much connectivity within ecosystems and the trophic cascade has been documented in almost all the world’s major biomes

• The loss of apex predators will have impacts on wildfires, disease, physical and chemical natures of the biosphere, soils, water, the atmosphere, species invasion and further biodiversity loss

• The loss of native apex predators can be understood as the ultimate driver of ecological change

Estes et al., 2011

• Food webs have undergone steep regional declines in complexity through loss of links after the expansion of humans in the Late-Pleistocene

• Extinctions have been the main driver of food web complexity loss as well as participatory species

• In areas where food webs are threatened, endangered species loss would decrease links further as they are often key to food web preservation

• It is possible to recover food web complexity through natural recolonisation and reintroduction of historic ranges

Fricke et al., 2022

• There is evidence humans began playing a role in extinctions in the Late-Pleistocene around 10,000-50,000 yeas ago

• In this time hominins first appeared in Africa but had very little impact on large herbivores

• Expanding grasslands, declining CO2, fires, pathogens and competing species seem to have played major roles in African megafaunal decline; the role of humans is unclear

Bobe & Carvalho, 2018

• Plant and fungal research is key to achieving many of the SDGs

• Documenting and describing them is key in protecting these species, they can also be seen as possible sources of food and medicine as well as possible losses being projected into the future

• We can alter traits of plants to improve efficiency and identify overlooked sources of food, energy and healthcare

• There are efforts to decolonising similar research and encourage more collaboration and equitable implementation of policy

Antonelli et al., 2020

• The 30×30 target is key to ensuring survival of the planet against biodiversity loss

• The right areas must be chosen and this should come from understanding the importance of all species

• Monitoring should be focused and to core standards as well as all stakeholders being involved to see collaboration fight biodiversity loss

Antonelli, 2023