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The concern about overexploitation, while relatively recent in the annals of modern environmental awareness, traces back to ancient practices embedded in human history. Contrary to the notion that overexploitation is an exclusively contemporary issue, the phenomenon has been documented for millennia and is not limited to human activities alone.
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.
Population overabundance can have a negative impact on the environment, and in some cases on the public as well. There are various methods through which populations can be controlled such as hunting, contraception, chemical controls, disease and genetic modification. Overabundant species is an important area of research as it can potentially ...
Lastly, overhunting is a prevalent issue. While indigenous people use every part of the animal for food and clothing, poachers usually only harvest the antlers from several reindeer at once.
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 ...
Population bottleneck followed by recovery or extinction. A population bottleneck or genetic bottleneck is a sharp reduction in the size of a population due to environmental events such as famines, earthquakes, floods, fires, disease, and droughts; or human activities such as genocide, speciocide, widespread violence or intentional culling.
Because amphibians generally have a two-staged life cycle consisting of both aquatic and terrestrial phases, they are sensitive to both terrestrial and aquatic environmental effects. Because their skins are highly permeable, they may be more susceptible to toxins in the environment than other organisms such as birds or mammals.
While habitat fragmentation is often associated with its effects on large plant and animal populations and biodiversity, due to the interconnectedness of ecosystems there are also significant effects that it has on the microbiota of an environment. Increased fragmentation has been linked to reduced populations and diversity of fungi responsible ...