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Habitat Loss in Biodiversity Hotspots

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Imagine you take a trip to the Tropical Andes but when you get there you see none of the beautiful wildlife and plant life you were hoping to see. Instead, you see large bridges and roadways, lumberjacks and fallen trees. Where there use to be large biodiversity hotspots thriving with life there are now animals losing their homes and coming into extinction.
This is beginning to happen in many hotspots around the world. But first to know how this is happening and why, you have to know what a Biodiversity Hotspot is; a Biodiversity
Hotspot is Earth’s biologically richest places, with high numbers of species found nowhere else.
“Hotspots face extreme threats and have already lost at least 70 percent of their original vegetation.” (Biodiversity Hotspots) There are many places that are considered a Biodiversity
Hotspots, to qualify as a hotspot a region must meet two strict criteria:
1. It must contain at least 1,500 species of vascular plants
2. It has to have lost at least 70 percent of its original habitat
There are also three factors that usually determine hotspots:
1. The number of total species
2. The number of unique species
3. The number of species at risk
(Lee, Alan. Biodiversity Hotspots?)(Biodiversity Decline)Glass, 2
There are also more causes to habitat loss than just deforestation such as, pollution, unsustainable farming and hunting, fossil fuel consumption, and introducing non-native species to that area are just some reasons for habitat loss. But

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