Hazards to biodiversity hotspots essay

Category: Science,
Published: 31.01.2020 | Words: 1009 | Views: 536
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Mentioning examples, discuss the dangers to biodiversity hotspots and why these types of threats could prove critical (15 marks) Biodiversity hotspots are areas inside the natural environment which contain some of the biggest concentration of flora and fauna in the world, often made up of many exceptional and endangered species. However many of these environments are endangered by the enjoys of weather change, elevated urbanisation/land work with and travel and leisure developments that may prove crucial for the well-being of their environment.

One area which has witnessed destruction in recent years is Galapagos which is an example of a biodiversity killer spot that is endangered by strange species.

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This kind of island off the coast of Ecuador houses a huge range of these ‘alien species’ with about 60% of the 180 native to the island plants in Galapagos today considered under threat. There is 490 launched insect types on the island, and 43 species of other invertebrates ” of the, 55 are high risk together with the potential to cause severe problems for native biodiversity. New vertebrate species turn up every year and aggressive unpleasant species including mainland leather predators may soon build themselves in Galapagos.

The brand new alien kinds destroy the natural panorama of the environment, eating food that is only for the animals living within the ecosystem. This threatens biodiversity and may prove crucial as the planet is being destroyed and types may also turn into extinct because of alien varieties. However , actions have been taken up preserve the first biodiversity in the area, such as: eradicating rodents and atroz cats and removing the quinine woods, which is one of the serious unfamiliar plant invaders.

The Arctic is an example of a biodiversity hotspot below threat simply by global warming. The tundra, with its rare arctic plant ecosystem, will get smaller as rising sea amounts are drowning coastal areas. Increased forest fires and insect infestations are expected to destroy coniferous forests and therefore reduce the two biomass as well as the biodiversity. Around the world will also result in warmer marine temperatures, hence having bad implications for the sea existence; the number of sea fish types will fall and reduce seafood stocks consequently. Fragile food webs could become very easily damaged leading toa decrease of tundra mosses that provide meals for family pets such as reindeer.

Declining deer numbers can affect species that hunt for them, just like wolves and thus this will result in a dominospiel effect, making decline of species within the food chain. Climate transform can prove critical as the actual Arctic is usually facing will even affect environments much additional south several migrant parrot species depend on summer nourishing and places to breed in the Arctic. In the future, migrant birds will need to fly further north and spend more time trying to find suitable feeding areas ” therefore the hazards to biodiversity hotspots can also be effecting other nearby ecosystems.

Deforestation is likewise a highly important threat to ecosystems since the measurement of forests results in loosing biodiversity and resources for the indigenous populations. It will also have got a negative knock-on effect on the meals chain, while aforementioned. Even so there are also wider environmental impacts as removing forest cover leads to elevated soil chafing which in turn increases the negative effects surging.

Over fermage of the environment puts biography diverse areas under risk such as overfishing in the North Sea, for example , unbalances meals webs, which, can lead to varieties become vanished. However the influences can be reduced with relatively simple solutions just like creating hedgerows, ponds and shelter devices. Tourism can even be seen a threat and damaging environments for example , trampling, increased urbanisation and polluting of the environment will endanger local environments and could potentially prove critical in the long run. However because travel and leisure often adds highly for the growth of the local economy (some even rely on it) it is hard to use a few of these solutions if perhaps they impair tourist activities or are creatively polluting and so forth Because tourism supports the area economy, including providing even more job possibilities for people in this area and preserving social heritage it is hard to choose between retaining an areas biodiversity and helping the locals to thrive.

Mangrove ecosystems happen to be critical for marine and freshwater biodiversity, permitting fish, prawn larvae and crabs to grow and produce. Prawn farming in Thailand positions a large threat to mangroves, although it offers beenpracticed in Thailand for more than 60 years, between your 70’s and 90’s, the coastal shrimp aquaculture industry has broadened dramatically because of the encouragement of the Thai govt in an effort to boost the economy. Among the impacts of shrimp farming is the relieve of spend into mangroves, which has damaging effects around the vegetation. Depletion of biodiversity in prawn farms and their surrounding areas could also prove critical while combined with different threats including over-harvesting, the number of mangroves can rapidly reduce.

The break down of mangroves means the key benefits of them may not be used for case in point they cannot successfully act as a buffer, which in turn would normally lessen the danger of hazards such as hurricanes and cyclones. It is questionable whether the typhoon in 2001’s devastating results could have been lessened if mangroves were better intact. A knock about effect of this is actually the coastline is going to erode more rapidly due to having no obstacle, the wearing away of the land and taking of sediments/rocks along with means houses happen to be vulnerable to this type of hazards and can potentially have to re-locate.

To conclude humans are having a constant and critical effect on biodiversity hotspots. However it may be argued that some are much less critical plus more easily workable than others. For example around the world threats to the Arctic are harder to control to get than employing zoning strategies in Asia.

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