Change Biodiversity

Alternation can have varying effects on wildlife, marine life, and humans.
Humans occupying forests could disrupt the natural order, disrupt trees and
plants, and potentially cause displacement or death of animals and insects. This
could damage the ecosystem and potentially impact human health. Proper
ecosystem management is crucial for biodiversity's long-term health.

Threats to Biodiversity: The following are the major threats to biodiversity as

identified by the United Nations’Environment Programme (WHO, n.d.): These
are the following:

1. Habitat loss and destruction- major contributing factor in the

inhabitation of humanbeings and the use of land for economic gains. This kind
of threat to biodiversity includes,habitat fragmentation caused by highways,
urbanization, and even climate change.

2. Alteration in ecosystem composition- Alterations and sudden changes,

either withinspecies groups or within the environment, could begin to change
entire ecosystems.Alteration in ecosystems are a critical factor contributing to
species and habitat loss. Thisincludes introduction of invasive species and
habitat degradation that alters the ecologicalrelationship of organisms to
organisms and/or environment.
3. Overexploitation- Over-hunting, overfishing or over-collecting
of species can quicklylead to its decline. Changing consumption
patterns of humans is often cited as the keyreason for this
unsustainable exploitation of natural resources. The main cause of
overexploitation is lack of sustainability of humans. Humans
useresources at will without thinking about the impact that it may
have on the planet in thenear or far off future, only thinking of what
they want and what they need.

4. Pollution and contamination- Biological system respond

slowly to changes in theirsurrounding environment. Pollution and
contamination cause irreversible damage tospecies and varieties.
Humans have the most contribution in pollution of the Earth such
asburning of fossil fuels, release of toxic materials, agricultural
activities, irresponsible wastedisposal, and mining operations

5.Global climate change- Both climate variability and climate

change cause biodiversityloss. Species and populations may be
The lost of biodiversity threatens food supplies, opportunities for recreation and
tourism,and the sources of wood, medicines and energy. It also interferes with essential
ecologicalfunctions. Climate change is considered as a natural phenomenon, however,
its speeding up isnot. The main cause for the speeding up of climate change is the
quantity of greenhouse gasesin the atmosphere emitted by anthropogenic activities

Even in the empowerment of technology and science at present, we still have a lot to
learn about bioadversity, more so about the consequences of biodiversity loss. However,
ever the basic concept about biodiversity loss was from the Charles Darwin and Alfred
Russel Wallace.

Consequences of Biodiversity Loss

Intact ecosystems function best since the organisms composing them arespecialized to
function in that ecosystem to capture, transfer, utilize and ultimately, lose bothenergy
and nutrients. The particular species making up an ecosystem determine its
productivity,affects nutrient cycles and soil contents, and influence environmental
conditions such as watercycles, weather patterns, climate, and other non-biotic aspects.
The loss of biodiversity has manyconsequences that we understand, and many that
we do not. It is apparent that humankind iswilling to sustain a great deal of
biodiversity loss if there are concomitant benefits to society; wehope they are net
benefits. In many cases, the benefits seems to accrue to a few individuals only,with net
societal loss. However, it is extremely difficult to estimate the future cost of losses
inbiodiversity or of environmental damage.