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Overexploitation does not necessarily lead to the destruction of the resource, nor is it necessarily unsustainable. However, depleting the numbers or amount of the resource can change its quality. For example, footstool palm is a wild palm tree found in Southeast Asia. Its leaves are used for thatching and food wrapping, and overharvesting has ...
The loss of biodiversity may not directly affect humans, but the indirect effects of losing many species as well as the diversity of ecosystems in general are enormous. When biodiversity is lost, the environment loses many species that perform valuable and unique roles in the ecosystem.
The Aral Sea is an example of a collapsed ecosystem. [1] (image source: NASA) An ecosystem, short for ecological system, is defined as a collection of interacting organisms within a biophysical environment. [2]: 458 Ecosystems are never static, and are continually subject to both stabilizing and destabilizing processes. [3]
The diversity of species and genes in ecological communities affects the functioning of these communities. These ecological effects of biodiversity in turn are affected by both climate change through enhanced greenhouse gases, aerosols and loss of land cover [citation needed], and biological diversity, causing a rapid loss of biodiversity and extinctions of species and local populations.
Habitat fragmentation consistently reduces biodiversity by 13 to 75% and impairs key ecosystem functions by decreasing biomass and altering nutrient cycles. This underscores the severe and lasting ecological impacts of fragmentation, which could be highlighted in the sections discussing the consequences of fragmentation.
Air pollution affects the functioning and biodiversity of terrestrial as well as aquatic ecosystems. [130] For example, "air pollution causes or contributes to acidification of lakes, eutrophication of estuaries and coastal waters, and mercury bioaccumulation in aquatic food webs". [130]
This type of biodiversity loss is known as one of the most critical threats to global biodiversity. The possible causes include habitat destruction and modification, diseases, exploitation, pollution, pesticide use, introduced species, and ultraviolet-B radiation (UV-B). However, many of the causes of amphibian declines are still poorly ...
Sustainable yield is the amount of a resource that humans can harvest without over-harvesting or damaging a potentially renewable resource. [1]In more formal terms, the sustainable yield of natural capital is the ecological yield that can be extracted without reducing the base of capital itself, i.e. the surplus required to maintain ecosystem services at the same or increasing level over time. [2]