The Living Planet 2022 report collects the studies elaborate about trends in biodiversity global and the health of planet. According to data from WWF (World Wildlife Fund) has registered a 69% decline in wild species populations since 1970.
For this reason, the biologist Miguel Rodríguez-Esteban has explained why the loss of biodiversity is increasing in recent years. In the first place, to understand what is happening, it is necessary to take into account that the advance of climate change feeds back the loss of biodiversity the global scale. In such a way that the increase in temperatures and droughts not only affects humanity, but many plants have had to increasingly shorten their life cycles due to lack of water. And many are affected by it. insects that feed on your nectar. These shortenings greatly decrease the probability of reproductive success. The same happens with amphibians, since they depend on the water from ponds and rivers to develop: “it is becoming more and more difficult for them because the water runs out sooner”, explains the biologist.
In short, “the deregulation of cycles very suddenly due to dysregulation of the climateleads to a reduction of the number of species”, he stresses.
What factors cause the loss or decrease of biodiversity? The human being is causing a reduction very significant with “the alteration of the habitatsthe overexploitation of natural resources, the pollution or the introduction of invasive alien species”, he explains. However, there is also the factor change climate which has always existed “and will continue to exist, even though we are no longer here”. The lost of biodiversity is something that is in constant change, but that by uniting with the factor human increases the speed of these changes.
There aren’t any factors defaults that trigger the disappearance of the species, since these vary depending on the species in question. “They are not the same for a Pacific coral as for a ave from the jungle of Borneo. Since, in the first case, the increase in temperatures generated by the change climate whiten los reefs. While in the other case the overexploitation of timber resources reduces or eliminates the habitat of many birds forestry.
Las species wild integrate all those animals or plants that have not been domesticated for the man The disappearance of these species is occurring in the tropical regions of America, Africa and Asia, since in these areas “environmental legislation is weak” or non-existent and overexploiting y contaminating the nature. “This is not to say that in Europe or North America we don’t have conservation problems, but rather that they have a different pace and scale,” she says. Among the extinct animal species we can highlight the woolly mammoth, the heather hen, the Labrador duck, the eastern puma, the aurochs or the tarpan. And in the case of Flabellidium or Adiantum lianxianense plants.
Therefore, the decrease in biodiversity affects some human aspects such as decrease of water quantity and quality, decrease in the variety of crops or increase in diseases infectious.
Effects of drought on species
Drought is a stress factor for many speciesbut many others are perfectly adapted to her. For example, cacti or camels that live in the deserts. “What really influences negative are the sudden events and prolonged of droughts in places where they are not common. Species can adapt, but they need time to do so, and the climate change that we have on the table right now “is going at a unacceptable for many of them.”
In this situation, there is no single solution put an end to the problem. Must to mitigate los effects harmful that human activity has on the medium environmentbut with a growing population like ours it is difficult for this rate of consumption slow down. Among some of the possible solutions are “reconnecting habitats that have been fragmented or limit the exploitation of certain natural resources,” he says.
