5 Major Threats to Biodiversity

5 Major Threats to Biodiversity

- Habitat Fragmentation

- Habitat Degradation

- Invasive Species

- Hunting/demand for wildlife products

- Contribution to climate change

Habitat Fragmentation

When a habitat is broken into smaller, disconnected habitat - this is usually because humans are using a part of the habitat.

This reduces mobility/migration, can isolate organisms that would normally feed on one another as part of the food chain, reduces access to breeding areas, increases interactions with humans that have the capability of being critical for those organisms, increases competition for resources between organisms in the habitat.

As humans use more land and resources, animals that lived in those habitats must fight for limited resources, eventually leading to the demise of the animals in the fragmented habitats.

Habitat Degradation

Conditions that reduce the quality of a habitat - this could be due to resource depletion or resource contamination.

Examples can be trash, chemicals, acid rain/snow, etc that deplete or, more likely, pollute resources that organisms use.

This leads to the loss of some species of organisms, essentially leading to the complete deterioration of the ecosystem

Red tide - diatoms remove oxygen and algal blooms in the water, eventually killing off native species in the habitat due to lack of oxygen

Invasive species

Invasive species - non-native organisms that disrupt the ecosystem due to no natural predators or competition. This leads to a decrease in food for native species, and an overpopulation of the invasive species.

Hunting

Hunting for meat, commercial products can lead to an organism bring over-hunted or having no natural predators, leading to the deterioration of an ecosystem as the invasive species use resources that would ordinarily be utilized by native species

Climate Change

Changes in environmental conditions can lead to the death and extinction of species, as the environmental conditions could be outside of the organisms’ range of tolerance. This can lead to the death of organisms inside of the ecosystem, and the eventual deterioration of the ecosystem as a result.