The Importance Of Living Species

The number of wild animals on Earth has halved in the past 40 years . Creatures across the land, rivers, and the seas are destroyed as humans killed them for food in unsuitable numbers, while polluting or destroying their habitats.

Conservation of our biodiversity not only demonstrates foresight, it protects the natural resources so vital to our own continued existence. The value of any single species to an ecosystem is immeasurable; the environment will not endure without its species, despite size or niche. These animals are not dispensable. And, they are apt to face extinction in the not too distant future, unless a resolve for their preservation is insisted by the public and enforced by governments internationally.

Long-term survival of a species depends on its ability to adapt to changing environmental conditions (Murphy, 1994). Genetic diversity within a species, which has taken 3.5 billion years to evolve, makes adaptations to these changing environments possible. Unfortunately, the rate of extinction of genetically diverse organisms is rapidly increasing, thus reducing this needed biodiversity, largely due to the human impacts of development and expansion. What was an average of one extinction per year before is now one extinction per hour and extinct species numbers are expected to reach approximately one million by the year 2000 (WWW site, Bio 65). As a result governmental and societal action must

There are several hypotheses that are used to explain the causes of mass extinctions. Climate change, the warming or cooling of global environments over a short period of time, can lead to other occurrences. Shifts in climate can cause extinction by

In today’s world, hardly any species of wildlife become extinct from natural causes. Europeans hunt animals to such an extent that we classify it as overhunting. We destroy their habitat, and introduce other animals that are a threat to endangered animals or are competition for resources and food. Habitat destruction is the greatest threat to both animals and plants.

Summarize: The result of one species extinction could potentially be fatal to the environment. In the animal kingdom, there is a food chain. Keystone animals, are the key ingredient to the food chain. When that keystone animals goes extinct, it sets off a chain reaction on the other animal’s food source. This causes one species to flourish and another to dwindle. The environment needs a healthy checks and balance system to keep each animal population under control (Stuart, 1990 ). Humans can cause the keystone animal to become extinct and therefore, responsible for rise and decline of other species, ultimately, throwing the food chain off balance.

Machovina, Brian, Kenneth J. Feeley, and William J. Ripple. "Biodiversity Conservation: The Key Is Reducing Meat Consumption." Science of The Total Environment 536 (2015): 419-31. Elsevier, 2015. Web. 20 July 2016.

E. O. Wilson, a famous American biologist, describes the main causes of extinction with a simple acronym: HIPPO or habitat, invasive species, pollution, population, and over-harvesting. Each of these causes traces back to humans. Habitat loss is when organisms lose their “homes” mostly due to human urbanization. Human cities have grown exponentially and it does seem to be slowing down. Due to this organisms have lost their natural habitats and are forced to leave and find new ones. Invasive species are organism that are placed in locations where they do not naturally occur. Humans have helped the growth of this problem due to the desire of extotic pets. Invasive species become an enormous problem because the location they are introduced to do not have the proper needs to help control the

Bill Freedmen, author of “Endangered Species—Human Causes Of Extinction and Endangerment” notes, “scientists approximate that present extinction rates are 1,000 to 10,000 times higher than the average natural extinction rate.” These distressing numbers should be acted upon to save the endangered species and avoid the catastrophic change to this planet if these species were to become extinct. In order to produce change, people need to recognize that habitat loss, climate change, and poaching are all factors in why our animal species are going extinct.

There are very many endangered species all around the world. If we let animals become extinct and not do anything about it, then a lot of our food sources are going to die out. We need to start doing stuff about endangered animals. Animals become endangered because either we over hunt them, or we destroy their habitat.

This is because individual species rely on each other and their environment. Humans impact the environment in extreme ways through construction, deforestation, carbon emissions, and agriculture (Green Living). By changing the environment to better suit our standards, we affect other species that depend on the environment to stay the way it is. This can potentially endanger many or all of the species that live in that environment. Since all species are interconnected through ecology, the extinction of one species creates a ripple effect (Biological Diversity). By forcing one species into extinction, we can force multiple other species towards

It’s clear that a great extinction is coming from the evidence of the destruction of other species around us. The choices made by the human race have too often negatively affected the surrounding species. Tracy Wilson, the site director for HowStuffWorks.com, in an article for Animal Planet, states that

Habitat destruction, deforestation, ozone depletion, global warming, and poaching. These actions and ecological happenings are creating a world where animals are going extinct at rapid rates. Our world is on the brink of what scientists believe is the sixth mass extinction. Unlike the five previous mass extinction, the latest one killing a majority of the dinosaurs, the main causes for this current extinction are anthropogenic reasons, not natural events.

The health of the earth degrades with the destructive activity of human beings. A recent study by a group of scientists looked at twenty four different services that the earth’s ecosystems provide for humans, ecosystem services, and found that fifteen of them are in need of desperate help (Gazette 31 March 2005). These services are vital to the survival of both human and nonhuman life and include filtering water and providing nutrient rich soils and ocean waters. Many of the members of these various ecosystems are also decreasing in numbers. In a British survey of bird populations found that in the 200 birds of Britain tracked there was about a 54% population decrease between the 1968-1971 tacking period and the 1988-1991 tacking period. In two other surveys of 254 native plant species from the same area there was a decrease of about 28% during the past 40 years. Humans are pushing the sixth mass extinction (Gazette March 19, 2004).

How did life begin? What is the atmosphere? As well as how do these relate? Well, we'll get there. I believe that Earth's atmosphere and life on Earth coevolved, and that life started in hydrothermal vents. I will be using evidence supporting my thesis to explain how the atmosphere evolved, how life on Earth and the atmosphere greatly affect each other, and why I believe that life started in hydrothermal vents. Before we get too far ahead, we need to know more about the atmosphere.