Influences of Environmental Change to Biodiversity
Environmental change is a term that broadly refers to either an alteration or disruption of the ecosystem or Mother Nature primarily resulting from impacts and effects caused by mankind as well as naturally occurring bionomical undertakings and activities (Young 1996). Young (1996) claims that changes of the environment could also comprise several happenings and occurrences ranging from disasters that occur naturally, disturbances from human beings to collaboration of animals among others. Nevertheless, these modifications and variations of the environment not only consist of substantial and visible adjustments but also include other things such as intrusions of some types, kinds or forms of either plants, insects or animals that tend to encroach others (Müller-Starck 1991). On the other hand, biodiversity is commonly termed as the discrepancies and variances existing amidst all the operational and functional living things and forms of life taking into account the land, oceanic and other seawater systems generated by the interaction of communities of organisms to their environment. Most importantly, biodiversity creates a platform for the extensive assortment and collection of extremely trivial services from the ecosystem that in turn contribute massively to the overall well- being of people worldwide (Tacconi 2000). Similarly, genetic diversity refers to the gross or aggregate units of hereditary attributes, traits and features incorporated in the genetic composition and constitution of a given kind of both plants and animals (Reidsma et al. 2006). Therefore, the whole concept of genetic diversity suggests that each separate and independent species contain an exceptional and distinctive set of genes that in turn generate the organism’s own special and remarkable characteristics. As such, this essay mainly focuses on how future environmental changes may affect and influence functional biodiversity as well as genetic diversity at multiple scales.
According to Gillson (2015), various future adjustments in the climate would end up causing environmental changes, which would in turn speculatively result to imminent threats and dangers to both functional biodiversity and genetic diversity in many areas globally. For instance, aerosols have been categorized as a threat to climate change. As air pollutants, aerosols pose a major change to biodiversity. With projected changes in the natural and artificial sources of aerosols in the future, their effect on weather, which directly affects biodiversity, is imminent (Gillson, 2015). Singh and Mal (2009) also predict that projected climatic changes that will undoubtedly cause effects on the environment comprise of increased intense and thorough droughts, territorial flooding, raised temperatures, constantly rising levels of the sea, potentially reduced rainfall, as well as decreased availability of water in water sources. Moreover, future changes in soil ph has been directly related to expected changes in the environment and climate change (Barnosky 2004). Future changes in evapotranspiration, soil hydrology, soil temperature regime, and organic biomass supply could potentially affect soil ph (Singh and Mal, 2009). Among others, some of those adverse impacts on the environment include greenhouse effects, air, water and noise pollution, deforestation, as well as tectonic forces and volcanic eruptions.
As a result, these changes in climate, which end up affecting the environment at large, will lead to a myriad of responses from the ecosystem in the future such as an increased reduction and decline of genetic diversities of various populations at the community level (Watson et al. 1998). Hence, some of the predicted effects of climate change include modifications and adjustments of networks and chains of the interactions and correlations exhibited by various plants and animals in a given habitat. The potential loss of heterozygosity because of lose in alleles has a direct relationship with an increase in homozygosity, which potentially leads to decreased biodiversity among small organisms (Lovejoy and Hannah, 2005). Moreover, habitat fragmentation has also been considered to affect genetic biodiversity. Changes in habitats fragmentation between two populations and flow of genes between them results in a reduction in genetic variations. Further, with imminent threats of changes in gene alleles because of gene flow, genetic drift, nonrandom mating, natural selection, and mutation as highlighted in the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium also potentially lead to genetic biodiversity (Lovejoy and Hannah, 2005). Thus, the expected reduction of genetic diversities occurs because of one-way anthology and instantaneous movement of organisms from one place to another in search of better living conditions (Steffen et al. 2007). In turn, directional selection and rapid migration leads to unfavorable and disadvantageous effects on both the normal operations and flexibility of ecosystems (Botkin et al. 2007). Therefore, all direct biotic interactions amongst living organisms ranging from parasitism, predation, facilitation and competition among others would ultimately end up being compromised thereby weakening the important element of coexistence.
For example, Worm et al. (2006) conducted a case study in America to show that future changes on the environment would indeed affect genetic diversities of interdependent species. Here, the said scholars used approximately 9650 organisms that live off and depend on others such as parasites and pollinators as well as connections between some plants and the soil such as those requiring nitrogen fixation. In turn, the research postulated that about 6300 species of both plants and animals could end up becoming extinct following alterations on the dominant species due to the said environmental changes. In the same way, Chapin III et al. (2000) posit that adjustments in the environment causes undesirable effects to plants during their flowering seasons as well as the insects that aid them in pollination in order to bear fruits. In turn, these detrimental implications translate to major changes within the genetic diversities of the said organisms due to divergences between populations of the flowering plants and those of the pollinating insects (Rockström et al. 2009a).
The said effects on the ecosystem could lead to extinction which apart from overseeing the total loss or the systematical wiping out of an entire species, an extremely sad scenario, also follows the prior depletion, forfeiture and erosion of genetic diversity within the plant and animal types in question (O’Brien 2016). As a result, this type of genetic diversity loss not only causes massive reductions in the capacities of the affected organisms to execute their duties within the entire ecosystem, but also results to the reduction and deprivation of other beneficial characteristics of species such as the aptness to fight off leeches and other dependent organisms.
Similarly, as for the effects on functional biodiversity, the most susceptible and exposed ecosystems comprise of the near shore and seaside plants and environments and mountainous regions at both regional and local scales. Changes in carbon source and energy source will most likely change the trophic positions and behavior of organisms. Extinction of some organisms will most likely lead to changes in trophic webs as new organisms will take higher positions in the trophic chain (Botkin et al., 2007). With pressures on biodiversity, most ecosystems will leave their initial “safe functioning spaces”. Since an ecosystem’s functioning is affected by ecosystem processes such as litter composition, nitrification, CO2 fixation, an respiration, a change in these processes causes changes in the whole ecosystem (Linawati, Stain and Lindner, 2013). The risk of loss of endemic species is an inherent threat that will also affect human beings and other species who depend on them.
Other vulnerable areas include those with tropical forests and jungles, disintegrated land ecosystems and ultimately places highly impotent to open fires as well as those with records of minimum and deficient supplies of fresh water especially lakes in Africa (Loreau et al. 2001). Recent case studies and researches conducted in various parts of southern America postulate that in the case of continued changes in the climate, then massive parts and sections of the Amazonian rainforest could end up being substituted by tropical savannahs in the near future (Comstock 2010). Nonetheless, the scholars predicted a different verdict for both altitudes and latitudes at elevated levels whereby mountain and arctic forests would increase in size and relocate their tree lines northwards and upwards respectively with continuous environmental changes.
However, the case studies also suggested that the modifications would be at the cost of the sparse distinctive communities that inhabit the grasslands and mountainous regions (Comstock 2010). Therefore, some of the most predictable species of living organisms vulnerable to either endangerment or extinction comprise those already dwelling within the higher levels of their bearable ranges of temperature. Examples of such organisms include the tropical coral reefs, which due to higher acidic contents of oceans would without doubt degrade mostly due to the increased oceanic temperatures resulting from warming caused by environmental changes (Hughes et al. 2003). According to Hughes et al. (2003), this is mostly likely speculated to happen in Midwest regions of America in the coming years whereby the said areas will experience more often and prolonged waves of heat. Additionally, other threatened species include those organisms also living within confined and constricted ideal positions as well as those inhibited in locomotion because of several reasons such as demolished and destroyed habitats or overall genuine deficiency of other options resulting from environmental changes.
Global scale reports of case studies released by the World Health Organization (WHO) in the fall of 2011 showed that areas such as Delhi in India lead in air pollution, which in essence tends to be a key factor and contributor to environmental changes (Hester and Harrison, 2002). This was so due to the fact that Delhi had immensely surpassed, by approximately ten times more, the acceptable limits of emissions into the atmosphere usually PM10. These forms of air pollution ranged from as results of production activities in industries, power plants based on the generation of thermal power through coal, to household and automotive emissions. Here, Hester and Harrison (2002) claim that WHO found that increased mortality and morbidity rates tended to occur simultaneously with the rising cases of air pollution. As such, this translates to the fact that such pollutions end up destroying the ecosystem since they not only cause massive deaths of human beings and animals but also lead to detrimental effects to plants and other microorganisms. Pollution of the air generates a basis for the formation of acidic rain, which in turn, gets absorbed by the soil and plants during photosynthesis leading to the death of living organisms found in the soil as well as the plants due to the adverse effects of the acidic water (Hester and Harrison 2002).
Similarly, studies conducted in China also indicated a staggering figure of about 1.6 million recorded human deaths annually resulting from the stated forms of pollution, with raised costs of damages of approximately 2 billion Hong Kong dollars (Comstock 2010). However, in China, the said forms of pollution occur due to human activities leading to the emission of smoke from coal together with suspended small discrete masses of both solid and liquid matter emitting from their many industries (Comstock 2010). Additionally, mountainous regions such as Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei also experience adverse effects since trees and other plants within the said areas through the natural cycles breathe in contaminated air, which could ultimately result to extinction of special plant species.
Indeed, going by the clearly laid out postulated future consequences of climate change to both functional biodiversity and the genetic diversity in the essay, it would be correct to infer that a lot of measures need to be put in place in order to avert the stated detrimental impacts at gene, local, community and global scales. Additionally, in the wake of the well- structured definition provided on biodiversity, it is undoubtedly right to deduce that by being a component of the biosphere, it is the only feature of the earth that is most intricate, flexible and wide ranging consisting of a layer of different species occupying both its terrestrial and aquatic regions. In the same way, this phenomenal element of the earth is the only one of its own kind going through a lot of ostentatious and melodramatic alterations and adjustments under the human being’s watch. As such, following the stated case studies throughout the essay, people can reckon that it is indeed extremely important to either cut down or modify their various activities and involvements which could trigger changes in the environment that in turn end up harming the well- being of the ecosystem. Similarly, through the exploration of factors surrounding genetic diversity as shown in the essay, one can easily point out and connect the link between the environment, biodiversity and genetic diversity. Here, the interdependence amongst the stated domains entails that changes or alterations in the ecosystem would in turn translate to the fact that the population of species within the said ecosystem would have to adapt and modify themselves in order to survive. Consequently, this kind of the ability to adapt would eventually determine the genetic composition and diversity of the said organisms.
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