Species Diversity and Human Activity

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Species diversity and human activity Species diversity relates to the number of different species within a single community. If there are a high variety of species the area is said to have high species diversity, however if there are few species it is said to have low species diversity. Agricultural Impacts: Within agriculture, the environment and what grows within it is controlled by the farmer who owns the land. This will mean that the farmer will manipulate what grows in his field. By increasing the growth of favoured crops and plants this leaves very little space for other species to grow, this will ultimately lead to very few other species of plants or no others if they die out. This is low species diversity in terms of plant life. Another form of species diversity in this case is within the wildlife in the area. By wiping out certain species of plants, various habitats and food sources for certain animals will be removed and destroyed and this will therefore lead to those animals relocating or becoming extinct. This ultimately leads to low species diversity in animals. “Agricultural intensification is best considered as the level of human appropriation of terrestrial net primary production. The global value is set to increase from 30%, increasing pressures on biodiversity. The pressures can be classified in terms of spatial scale, i.e. land cover, landscape management and crop management. Different lowland agricultural landscapes in Great Britain show differences among these pressures when habitat diversity and nutrient surplus are used as indicators. Eutrophication of plants was correlated to N surplus, and species richness of plants correlated with broad habitat diversity. Bird species diversity only correlated with habitat diversity when the diversity of different agricultural habitats was taken into account. The pressures of agricultural change may
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