The era of humanity we live in has affected nearly all life on Earth. The worst of these effects include the accelerated extinction and extinction of countless species over the past few millennia. The recent wave of extinctions has led some scientists to refer to our era as the Anthropocene extinction, along with the 6th mass extinction.
In the past, a giant Chicxulub impactor brought about the end of non-avian dinosaurs and many other life forms 66 million years ago. Other extinction events likely included the early growth of trees, which may have been the cause. 70% to 80% of the animal species on Earth will die out The Devonian period began 375 million years ago.
But today, humans are impacting the planet. So what is the root cause of this recent extinction event? It’s complex, and most extinctions on Earth are caused by a combination of factors.
Human development of critical habitats
One of the biggest causes of extinction around the world is habitat loss, usually due to development and human expansion. This often includes everything from the destruction of rainforest and deforestation for housing development. farms and ranches.
Deliberate fires and logging have wiped out 20 percent of the Amazon since the 1960s and wiped out countless species. The researchers further away 21% to 40% of Amazon forest will be lost by 2050.
The destruction of natural land by humans to build houses, plant crops, and construct fences and roads causes a variety of problems for local wildlife. Development can also bring chemical pollution (which can seep into freshwater supplies), sound and light pollution into the area.
Without habitat or food resources, the animals may also be at risk of poaching. To halt these losses, conservationists and researchers are promoting: Protect 30 percent of the planet by 2030.
read more: How do we know when a species becomes extinct?
Introduction to avoidable diseases
Another major cause of extinction in the Anthropocene is disease. And it doesn’t suddenly appear out of nowhere. Often introduced by non-native species. In fact, some diseases are even considered invasive.
Take avian malaria, a protozoan parasite that affects birds. In many parts of the world, birds have mostly evolved to cope with it. However, the disease and the mosquito that transmits it were only introduced to Hawaii relatively recently. The disease has widely affected dozens of native honeycreeper species on the archipelago. driving one third of them to extinction. a few morebarely hanging on, as in “Aki Kiki” and “Akekee.”
Perhaps the worst wildlife disease is caused by the chytrid fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis and Batrachochytrium salamandrivorans. Originally from Asia, these diseases have spread around the world since the 1970s, affecting Australia, the Americas, and… Africa recently.
read more: Scientists are trying to save these animals from extinction
Overfishing and poaching cause declines
During the Late Pleistocene, many iconic large species such as saber-toothed cats, mammoths, and mastodons went extinct in many parts of the world, including the Near East and the Americas. Global warming after the last Ice Age may have contributed to their disappearance, but human expansion was thought to be a larger factor. According to recent research.
“Total megafauna abundance, biomass, and energy turnover have declined by 92 to 95 percent over the past 50,000 years, suggesting a massive human-driven reorganization of ecosystems on a global scale.” Juraj Bergman et al. state in their study.
And this pattern of extinction has not stopped since humans emerged from the Stone Age. A subspecies of the northern white rhino has been declared extinct in the wildwhile the International Union for Conservation of Nature declared the western black rhino extinct. Several Asian subspecies are also extinct or extinct in the wild. On the other hand, other large species such as the African elephant is in decline Rapidly due to poaching.
read more: Everything you need to know about the extinction of saber-toothed cats
Climate change is increasing extinction rates
Although climate change is perhaps the most difficult to control, it is not a new problem for wildlife. The natural cycle of ice ages and warm periods has always caused extinctions. However, since the industrial era, the pace of climate change has increased significantly.
Because there are many confounding factors, it is difficult to determine exactly how climate change caused the extinction. Particularly vulnerable species are those whose natural habitats become too warm to migrate to polar regions. These include species whose entire range inhabits isolated bodies of water, isolated mountain ridges, or small islands. Melomis of Bramble Cay is located on a small island in Papua New Guinea. In 2019, it is the first mammal recognized as extinct due to climate change.
Research also shows that local extinctions, or population extinctions, occur. In some cases, it is accelerating.
“As climate change accelerates, the pace of these extinctions may accelerate, potentially leading to large-scale species-level extinctions,” Kim Holtzman and colleagues wrote in the study.
read more: Which animals are becoming extinct?
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our writers are discovermagazine.com We use peer-reviewed research and high-quality sources in our articles, and our editors review them for scientific accuracy and editorial standards. Check out the following sources used in this article.
Joshua Rapp Learn is an award-winning science writer based in DC. The Alberta resident has written for numerous scientific publications, including National Geographic, The New York Times, The Guardian, New Scientist, and Hakai.
