Ecosystems on the Edge
OCEANS:
WETLANDS:
ISLANDS:
ARCTICS:
FORESTS:
- For a long time biodiversity in the oceans were unknown and unclear to us.
- It assists in the overall functionality of each ecosystem that we have on Earth.
- Resistant to environmental changes.
- Biodiversity in the oceans has been changing now that human interaction in the area has increased and because we do not know much about all the species that live in the oceans, determining the extinction rate is difficult and unrecordable.
- Oceans gives a lot of nutrients and life-sustaining fuel that all species on Earth need to live
WETLANDS:
- Known as a “biological super system.”
- Essential area for the organisms that produce the base of our food web.
- We use wetlands to distribute water to different areas of the world by drain tiles.
- Water in wetlands are cleaner because the water is slow moving so waste settles at the bottom easier and biological chemicals can break down particulates to make the water clean.
- Wetlands provide: increased biodiversity, less flood damage, cooler planet, recreational opportunities and a healthy economy.
- Variety of different wetlands are known to exist on our planet. (NOTE: If you’d like to list them, just look up the different marshes that exist and add them if you’d like. I didn’t know if I should list them or if the information was important.)
ISLANDS:
- Many of the species found on islands are endemic. This means that most of the species located on islands are found nowhere else in the world but there.
- In the last 400 years there have been 724 extinctions that occurred, half of them were found on islands.
- Islands have a unique assembly of life to them.
ARCTICS:
- Out of all the biodiverse areas in the world that are experiencing global warming, none are feeling it more than the arctic system.
- An area with diverse group of species that have adapted to the harsh climate.
- Some species that are threatened by the decline of this ecosystem are: Polar Bears, Pacific Walrus and the vast array of different groups of seals.
- Another large impact to the arctic ecosystem is human interactions. Humans have found better ways to live in the harsh climate and have used the once unknown land to build and expand into.
- Oil harvesting has become a big thing in the arctics and it has been having a great toll on the environment and the species that live there.
- If the arctic ice continues to melt it will release large amounts of stored methane into the atmosphere, which will have a larger effect of global warming than carbon dioxide does.
FORESTS:
- 45 percent of the Earth’s original forests are gone and 12 million hectares of forest are being lost a year.
- More than 10 million different species of animals, plants, fungi, and microorganisms inhabit the earth.
- Forests are most diverse ecosystems on land, because they hold vast majority of world’s terrestrial species
- Forest biodiversity is threatened by rapid deforestation, forest fragmentation and degradation, hunting, and the arrival of invasive species… we are losing 12 million hectares of forest per year
- Best way to protect forest biodiversity is to establish protected forest areas