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Species from all groups of fauna and flora are affected by overexploitation. This phenomenon is not bound by taxonomy; it spans across mammals, birds, fish, insects, and plants alike. Animals are hunted for their fur, tusks, or meat, while plants are harvested for medicinal purposes, timber, or ornamental uses.
Mass extinctions are characterized by the loss of at least 75% of species within a geologically short period of time (i.e., less than 2 million years). [18] [51] The Holocene extinction is also known as the "sixth extinction", as it is possibly the sixth mass extinction event, after the Ordovician–Silurian extinction events, the Late Devonian extinction, the Permian–Triassic extinction ...
Loss of biodiversity also means that humans are losing animals that could have served as biological-control agents and plants that could potentially provide higher-yielding crop varieties, pharmaceutical drugs to cure existing or future diseases (such as cancer), and new resistant crop-varieties for agricultural species susceptible to pesticide ...
The animals, not-so-lovingly referred to as Graboids, tunnel their way through the Earth in search of anything they can fit inside their gaping mouths. While we don’t expect them to be quite so ...
The animals were caught and removed, but not before damaging 14 cherry trees, including some of the largest and oldest trees. [ 110 ] [ 111 ] [ 112 ] Arctic impacts
The illegal wildlife trade is the illegal trading of plants and wildlife. This illegal trading is worth an estimate of 7-23 billion [30] and an annual trade of around 100 million plants and animals. [31] In 2021 it was found that this trade has caused a 60% decline in species abundance, and 80% for endangered species. [31]
Red list categories of the IUCN Demonstrator against biodiversity loss, at Extinction Rebellion (2018).. The current rate of global biodiversity loss is estimated to be 100 to 1000 times higher than the (naturally occurring) background extinction rate, faster than at any other time in human history, [25] [26] and is expected to grow in the upcoming years.
Defaunation is the global, local, or functional extinction of animal populations or species from ecological communities. [4] The growth of the human population , combined with advances in harvesting technologies, has led to more intense and efficient exploitation of the environment. [ 5 ]