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Human activities affect marine life and marine habitats through overfishing, habitat loss, the introduction of invasive species, ocean pollution, ocean acidification and ocean warming. These impact marine ecosystems and food webs and may result in consequences as yet unrecognised for the biodiversity and continuation of marine life forms. [3]
The Report examined the rate of decline in biodiversity and found that the adverse effects of human activities on the world's species is "unprecedented in human history": [14] one million species, including 40 percent of amphibians, almost a third of reef-building corals, more than a third of marine mammals, and 10 percent of all insects are ...
English: This publication presents the first global assessment of biodiversity for food and agriculture worldwide, including plants, animals and microorganisms at genetic, species and ecosystem levels, present in and around crop, livestock, forest and aquatic production systems.
Human impact on the environment. From top left, clockwise: satellite image of Southeast Asian haze; IAEA experts investigate the Fukushima disaster; a seabird during an oil spill; depiction of deforestation of Brazil's Atlantic forest by Portuguese settlers, c. 1820 –25; acid mine drainage in the Rio Tinto; industrial fishing in 1997, a practice that has led to overfishing.
Human activities are affecting the capacity of ecosystems to provide these goods and services. [18] [19] Drivers of biodiversity loss and decline in ecosystem functioning include climate change, deforestation, desertification and land degradation, freshwater decline, overexploitation, stratospheric ozone depletion, and pollution.
Biodiversity loss has bad effects on the functioning of ecosystems. This in turn affects humans, [45] because affected ecosystems can no longer provide the same quality of ecosystem services, such as crop pollination, cleaning air and water, decomposing waste, and providing forest products as well as areas for recreation and tourism. [122]
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.
A 2018 study from the University of East Anglia team analyzed the impacts of 2 °C (3.6 °F) and 4.5 °C (8.1 °F) of warming on 80,000 plant and animal species in 35 of the world's biodiversity hotspots. It found that these areas could lose up to 25% and 50% of their species, respectively: they may or may not be able to survive outside of them.