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Biodiversity – Threats Introductory Article Biodiversity – Threats Introductory article Weston W Sechrest, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, USA Article Contents Thomas M Brooks, Center for Applied Biodiversity Science – Conservation International, . Introduction Washington DC, USA . Extinction . Genetic and Behavioural Degradation of Taxa . Any direct or indirect human activity that threatens the planet’s biological diversity in the Habitat Destruction . form of genes, populations, species, ecosystems, or other levels of biological organization Habitat Degradation and Fragmentation . is considered a threat to survival. Pollution . Global Climate Change . Introduced Species Introduction . Disease . Exploitation Biological diversity or biodiversity is defined as the variety . Summary of the planet’s living organisms and their interactions. The . Acknowledgements term biodiversity encompasses all of life’s variation, expressed in genes, individuals, populations, species, communities and ecosystems. Quantitative measures of The transition that began around 10 000 years ago from biodiversity most often focus on a taxonomic unit, gathering and hunting cultures to sedentary agricultural typically the species, although aspects of ecological societies spurred human population growth from several diversity can also be measured. Biodiversity is a dynamic million to over 6 billion in the year 2000. This population entity, and has changed throughout the history of life on growth, coupled with the proliferation of new technologies Earth. and accompanying resource consumption, has created a The mechanisms responsible for biodiversity change are biodiversity threat rivalling all past natural threats. evolutionary processes of speciation and extinction, along Modern human actions threaten biological diversity on a with ecological processes over shorter time periods. worldwide scale, over an extremely short geological time Extinction and speciation are well catalogued in the period. The sources of danger to biodiversity include palaeontological record as instrumental to biodiversity taxonomically specific threats such as exploitation, intro- fluctuations. Species interactions, environmental change, duced species, and genetic or behavioural degradation, all and even cosmic disturbances (meteors, tidal interactions, of which can interact and ultimately result in extinction. and solar processes) have played key roles in shaping past These threats combine with the community and ecosystem and present biodiversity. Throughout the course of life on level threats of habitat degradation, fragmentation, and this planet, average background extinction rates have been destruction, pollution and global climate change, causing punctuated by extinction episodes, the five most devastat- disruption and alteration of community and ecosystem ing of which are termed mass extinctions. Over 99% of all structure and function. Humans have triggered a sixth species that have existed on this planet are now extinct. mass extinction. Present biodiversity is nonetheless impressive, with over 1.75 million species described and at least an order of Extinction magnitude more species still unknown (Figure 1). A sixth new mass extinction is now underway. This The most obvious loss of biodiversity is the extinction of recent threat to biodiversity arose in the early Pliocene, unique taxa. Extinction occurs when no more individuals marking the beginning of hominid activities affecting of a taxonomic group survive, either within a specified part biodiversity on increasingly larger scales, aided by tool and of their range or forever lost across their entire range. The fire use. Prehistoric extinctions triggered by humans taxonomic unit of extinction is usually measured as a include loss of megafauna in North America, Australia, species, though extinction can be assessed at subspecific or Asia, and to a lesser extent South America and Africa. For population levels. A species, by definition, is evolutionarily example, Australia lost 23 of 24 large terrestrial vertebrate unique; each species has distinct genetic, evolutionary, genera (with body size greater than 45 kg) within a short behavioural and ecological attributes that once lost cannot time period around 46 000 BP. This extinction trend be replaced. continued into the late Holocene with oceanic island The process of extinction and speciation has been extinctions in the Pacific and other regions, including continual; as new species have arisen others have dwindled Madagascar and New Zealand, decimating several thou- and become extinct. The one constant of evolutionary sand bird species along with losses of other taxa, change has provided varying amounts of diversity over transforming many island ecosystems. geological time. Throughout the history of life on this ENCYCLOPEDIA OF LIFE SCIENCES / & 2002 Macmillan Publishers Ltd, Nature Publishing Group / www.els.net 1 Biodiversity – Threats Viruses Prokaryotes Algae Protozoa Fungi Lower plants Higher plants Nematodes Annelids Insects Arthropods (incl. insects) Vertebrates Soil macrofauna Marine macrofauna Terrestrial macrofauna Terrestrial flora All species 1 × 103 1 × 104 1 × 105 1 × 106 1 × 107 1 × 108 Number of species Described up to 1995 Expert opinion Extrapolation Figure 1 Number of described species and estimates of species numbers, including expert opinions of taxonomic specialists and various extrapolations (Pimm et al., 1995) planet, losses of biodiversity have been common. There is Extinction, by reducing overall diversity, creates a more palaeontological evidence for five mass extinctions, during biologically and ecologically uniform biosphere. In addi- which many taxonomic groups lost a majority of species. tion to the loss of ecological diversity, the phylogenetic The current extinction crisis has seen species lost at a rate history of each species or taxonomic group is lost for ever. perhaps 1000 to 10 000 times the average background rate The ultimate tool for increasing diversity, evolutionary identified by the fossil record. Indeed, the present change, requires extremely long geological time periods. extinction episode may eventually rival in rate and Ecosystem recovery from drastic biodiversity losses in magnitude all previous episodes on this planet. The cause previous mass extinctions required millions of years. of virtually every present extinction lies ultimately in anthropogenic actions. Current taxonomic extinction risk has been system- atically assessed by several organizations, most notably the Genetic and Behavioural Degradation International Union for the Conservation of Nature and of Taxa Natural Resources (IUCN). Detailed information is available for well-known groups of organisms, including Biological diversity encompasses the diversity of popula- most vertebrates and flowering plants, and to a much lesser tions within species, as well as genetic and behavioural extent for invertebrates, other plants and fungi. Since 1600, diversity within populations. Species differences are the at least 1.84% of mammals and 1.20% of bird species have most easily recognizable form of diversity, although become extinct. Present calculations estimate 25% of differences at the population and genetic levels are mammals and 12% of birds at risk of extinction with a necessary components for species survival. As the line probability of at least 10% over the next 100 years. Species between species is sometimes vague – for example, due to at risk are mainly those that have small range or population hybridization or asexual reproduction – the distinction sizes, especially species that have become rare due to between populations within species is likewise often human activity. Delayed extinction following habitat loss difficult to establish. There are two main mechanisms of or other mechanisms of abundance and range reduction genetic and behavioural degradation, the outright loss of may take tens to thousands of years, even if all present populations and alteration of populations as a result of anthropogenic threats cease. Invertebrates and marine human activity. Extreme examples of both can be seen in taxa have had comparatively little scientific attention paid captive populations, of relevance to biodiversity when to them, though by all calculations they contain a most or all surviving individuals of a species are in significant amount of species at risk of extinction in the captivity, such as Spix’s macaw (Cyanopsitta spixi). foreseeable future. Certain terrestrial and marine geo- However, the main threat from such degradation is to graphic regions, especially in the tropics, contain high wild populations. proportions of endemic species. These areas often con- Many behavioural differences exist among species’ currently face disproportionately greater threat from populations; for example, separate chimpanzee (Pan habitat loss and other perils. troglodytes) populations utilize different tools, such as sticks to extract termites from their mounds or rocks to 2 ENCYCLOPEDIA OF LIFE SCIENCES / & 2002 Macmillan Publishers Ltd, Nature Publishing Group / www.els.net Biodiversity – Threats break open nuts. Behaviours are not reserved to verte- Habitat Destruction brates; invertebrates can also alter or lose behaviours as a result of human influence. For example, the monarch One of the most devastating threats to biodiversity is the butterfly (Danaus plexippus), though not endangered as a outright loss of habitat due to human activity. Habitat loss species, has populations that undergo remarkable migra- typically involves
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