Biodiversity is highly important when determining the vulnerability and resilience of an ecosystem as species, genetic and population diversity can have detrimental effects on the ability of an ecosystem to survive and recover after damage. Stability within an ecosystem is determined by the levels of biodiversity, whether species be threatened or thriving. Large species and genetic diversity is important as variation within a species leads to greater ability to recover after dramatic damage and disruption. Within the Daintree Rainforest ecosystem, cassowaries and other vulnerable fauna species are abundant due to supportive habitats and lowland areas suitable and supportive for breeding habits. Small changes in an ecosystem can highly damage the abundance of specific species such as insects and marine life (fish species are adapted to very regulated temperatures, any change in water temp can often be detrimental to fish species).
Nowadays these cute creatures have been unexpectedly declining in population because of the many challenges in which they have to adapt. Many of these challenges like having to live close to human communities and devouring cattle and sheep, running away from poachers and hunters, starving from food shortage ad even having difficulty to find a mate is caused by humans and their actions. Many of these challenges are brought by specifically by urbanization and human growing population. Urbanization requires many homes to be built, farms to be enlarged for agriculture to feed the human population. Therefore, deforestation sabotages habitat loss, insufficient food for the jaguars and other carnivores.
* Impacts on Agriculture The region’s economy depends on crops; the majority of the Great Plains is used for agriculture. With temperatures increasing, extreme heat, and droughts becoming more frequent, the aptness for certain Great Plains’ crops will change. Livestock will also be put under heat stress and are more at risk for disease. Poor agricultural land management combined with drought can also cause many disastrous events, for example the Dust Bowl of the 1930s. With expected warming temperatures and constant burdens on water and land resources, negative impacts will certainly affect the agriculture.
Catherine Medrano Research Question #2 14 March 2013 Future Plant and Animal Diversity in Tropical Rainforests Within the last 50 years deforestation has taken 17% of the Amazon’s land area and imposes a major impact on plant and animal species (WorldWildLife.Org/threats/deforestation). Frustrations over the biodiversity in the tropics have created a sense of turmoil in which scientists are concerned with political judgment. Political officials have protested the idea of the future loss of biodiversity to be inadequate and extremely low. Evidence has founded that with the increased deforestation and population rates the human race is at terrible risk of not only loss of resources but of habitat loss due to extinction rates (Bradshaw et al., 2009). These findings can conclude that with increased exposure to deforestation plants and animals are limited in habitat reformation and thus cause problematic extinction rates for the future.
Both Boscastle and Thailand were at the foot of steep slopes. Steep slopes mean that rainwater will run straight off the surface. Deforestation is also a major factor in this. Ten years ago Thailand was a home to many natural vegetation and forests. However due to illegal logging and the government’s agricultural policy, it had resulted in the loss of many forests.
Although, a lot of the forests are being cut down by timber companies. This has been the main reason for the owl’s endangerment. The United States government declared the Northern Spotted Owl endangered in the year of 1990. This made it illegal to log in forests inhabited by the Northern Spotted Owl or thought to be inhabited. That created a debate between loggers and the United States government.
The linchpin argument that Regan provides is that the fundamental idea of protecting animals is a unifying force. As a result of sport hunting and commercial usage of animals many species have been endangered and some driven to extinction. Urban sprawl and depletion of natural habitats such as the rain forest have been factors contributing to the loss of animal life. From these problems the obvious implications of depleting species seems clear. The unbalancing of nature has led to many situations where humans have endangered themselves by creating unsustainable environments.
Ecologists have discovered that these practices have dramatically impacted the diets of wild animals. The spotted hyenas were affected by Lent and had to change their eating habits. Spotted hyenas are notorious for their scavenging ways. They get food from butcher's waste and households but now have turned to hunting. This research was published in the British Ecological Society's Journal of Animal Ecology.
Due to the reactivity of acid rain, the cell processes of plants are disrupted, and the cells die or become unable to function properly. Although this greatly damages ecosystems, this environmental issue brings concern to society. Today, with our growing population of more than 7 billion, humans have become hugely dependant on agriculture. As such, acid rain has the potential to damage crops extensively, and thus, damage society as well through shortage of food or even famine. In addition, in countries that depend on the production of agricultural goods like Canada, the effects of acid rain can be tremendous.
If it wasn’t for a dog, a flea would not be able to live. Humans are very harmful to the Earth. They cause a lot of hazards like pollution with all their uses of nonrenewable resources and production of trash. People also are killing and chopping down a lot of trees on the Earth, causing some species to die. Fleas are also very harmful to dogs.