Saturday, June 09, 2007

BIODIVERSITY

A brief definition of biodiversity, is all the set of living beings, the atmosphere in which they live and the relation that they keep with other species.
Biodiversity is a contraction of biological diversity. Biodiversity reflects the number, variety and variability of living organisms. It includes diversity within species and between species and within the ecosystem.


Biodiversity is the variability among living organisms from all sources, including terrestrial, marine, aquatic, and ecological
complexes of which they are part. The loss of the biodiversity finds its cause in the acceleration of the climatic change
simultaneously, is a consequence of the human activity.

Global warming represents a profound and emerging threat to biodiversity around the world. It means, that in a global scale, the loss of biodiversity is recognized like one of the most critical environmental problems that the humanity faces at the moment, as we already know, as temperatures rise, habitats for many plants and animals will change, depriving them of the homes and niches to which they have adapted.





Monarch butterflies could lose
their wintering habitats
in the mountains of Mexico











Polar bears
could be affected by
loss of sea life.



The speed with which global warming occurs is critically important for wildlife, and that the accelerating rates of warming we can expect in the coming decades are likely to put large numbers of species at risk.
Species in the higher latitudes of the northern hemisphere, where the warming will be greatest, may have to migrate. Plants may need to move 10 times faster than they did at the end of the last ice-age. Very few plant species can move at rates faster than one kilometer per year, and yet this is what will be required in many parts of the world.[①]



desert tortoise
may not be able
to keep pace with the
warming climate






In Africa,
the nyala antelope is vulnerable
to expected habitat change
in Malawi's Lengwe National Park. We are talking mainly about the conservation of the biological diversity, creating protected areas as they are: National parks,
Forests, areas of wild life, reserves etc… and the efforts by the conservation of rare, threatened or vulnerable species to the
changes in the environment .
Also it is necessary to conserve botanical diversity of species in zoos, botanic gardens, seeds banks, centers of production of
seeds etc…

We can conclude, the natural species are extinguishing to a greater rate than the one that the natural processes of extension
cause.

WHAT CAN BE DONE
Preserve more critical areas (terrestrial and marine) that harbor unique or unusually high levels of biological diversity, construct corridors between fragmented ecosystems to increase species numbers and preserve genetic diversity, repair damage to ecosystems so that they can once again provide critical services to humans and other constituent species.


1.http://www.panda.org/news_facts/newsroom/features/index.cfm?uNewsID=2143

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