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Human influence on the biodiversity is causing it’s loss. Mankind has been exploiting natural resources for monetary and other gains. Also the rate of restoring those resources is slower than the rate of using them up.

1. Singh, S.P., Chronic disturbance, a principal cause of environment degradation in developing countries, Environ. Conserve. 2. Joshi, P.C. and Joshi, N. biodiversity and conservation.

Habitat Destruction (Deforestation) and Forest Fragmentation

It is one of the most important cause driving plants and animals to exitinction. When habitats are cleared up or fragmented, mammals and birds requiring large territories and certain animals with migratory habits are badly affected leading to population declines. Population growth, urbanization, industrialization and tourism are all factors. 

Overexploitation of Natural Resource

Overexploitation remains a serious threat to many species and populations. Among the most commonly overexploiting species or groups of species are marine fish and invertebrates, trees, and animals hunted for meat. Most industrial fisheries are either fully or overexploited, and the impact of overharvesting are crumpled to destructive fishing techniques that destroy habitat, as well as associated ecosystem such as estuaries and wetlands.

The illegal killing and smuggling of wildlife is rampant in almost all parts of the world. In India, killing of elephants to obtain their tusk and tiger to obtain their multiple benefits has taken place. Poaching of male elephant for tusk leads to imbalance in the sex ratio to their population.

Global Warming

Climate change is already having an impact on biodiversity, and is projected to become a progressively more significant threat in the coming decades. The loss of biodiversity could have many negative impacts on the future of ecosystem and humanity worldwide. Greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, absorb heat from sunlight, preventing it from escaping back into space. As the level of greenhouse gases rises, so will temperatures. The intergovernmental Panel on climate change predicts that by 2100, temperatures may rise as much 6⁰C. Though changes in climate have happened in the past, the rapid severity of this change will directly affect ecosystem and biodiversity. The Polar Regions are already affected by rising temperatures. Diminishing ice packs have reduced the habitats of polar bears, penguins, puffins and other Arctic creatures. As the ice melts, it will cause a rise in sea level, which will affect and perhaps destroy ecosystem on coast lines. Changes in temperatures will also cause shifts in mating cycle, especially for migratory animals that rely on changing seasons to indicate to sea temperature and perhaps even currents. Such changes would have a strong impact on zooplankton, an essential part of the food chain in the ocean. Shifts in where plankton is found and how big their populations are could upset the biodiversity in the ocean. Whales especially could be affected as many species require mass amounts of plankton to survive. In Addition, increased carbon dioxide causes acidification of the ocean, affecting creatures and plants that are sensitive to Ph imbalance. As biodiversity, decreases, there will be far-reaching effects. Disruptions in the food chain may greatly affect not only ecosystems but also humanity’s ability to deed an ever-growing population. For example, losing diverse insect species will decrease plant pollination. There is also a risk of ability to produce medicine as key plants are lost to extinction. Biodiversity also protects against natural disasters, such as grasses that have evolved specifically to resist the spread of wildfires.

Nutrient Loading

Over the past four decades, nutrient loading has emerged as one of the most important drivers of ecosystem change in terrestrial, freshwater & coastal ecosystem. Pollution from burning fossil fuels such as oil, coal and gas can remain in the air and particle pollutants or fall to the ground as acid rain. Acid rain, which is primarily composed of sulfuric and nitric acid, causes acidification of lakes, streams and sensitive forest soils, and contributes to slower forest growth and tree damage at high elevations. In addition, chemical pollutants such as pesticides and herbicides leach into soils and watersheds. Some fish species, such as simonies, require small freshwater stream to spawn. Polluted stream result in the abandonment of traditional spewing areas and ultimately in the loss of salmon populations. However, many species are vulnerable to the indirect effects of pollution through the concentration of toxic chemicals in top predators of food chains and disruption of predators-prey interactions.

Agriculture

The introduction of monocropping and the use of relatively few plants for food and other uses – at the expense of the wide variety of plants and animals utilized by earlier peoples and indigenous peoples - is responsible for a loss of diversity and genetic variability.

Natural Calamities

Natural calamities such as floods, cyclones, landslides and avalanches, volcanism, etc., are also responsible for depletion of biological diversity. For example, during the monsoon season in 1998 and also many time after 1998, entire Kaziranga National Park in Assam was heavily flooded which led to the death 28 rhinos, 70-85 deer, 8 bears and 3 elephants and many plants species were also lost.

Extraction of Energy Resources

Development and utilization of various forms of energy resources, e.g. fossil fuel (crude oil, coal and natural gas), biomass energy, nuclear energy, hydroelectricity, and other non-conventional energy sources has direct implications on biodiversity. Development of these energy sources modifies natural habitat and alters the evolutionary process. Development and utilization of fossil fuel accelerates global climatic changes and associated disturbances like air pollution, particularly when coupled with human population growth and eventually leads to the loss of biodiversity. Development of biomass energy requires vast stretches of land to be under agriculture hand.

This result is conversion of natural landscapes in agriculture land. Also, it leads to monoculture and destroys the diversity of that landscape which is the loss of biodiversity. Development of hydroelectricity necessitates water storage in highlands, due to which large areas under forests and grasslands submerged under water. This result in modification of natural habitats, and ultimately that leads to loss of biodiversity. Similarly, other modes of energy sources affect the biodiversity.

Man-animal Conflict

The growing human population, deforestation, loss of habitat and decline in their prey species are few major reasons behind the human wildlife conflict in India. Natural wildlife territory is overlaps with the human’s existence and various form of human-wildlife conflict occur with various negative results. The major causes for the man-animal conflict include deforestation, habitat loss, growing human population, decline in prey and injured or old animal.

Tourism               

Tourism can cause loss of biodiversity in many ways, e.g. by competing with wildlife for habitat and natural resources. Deforestation and intensified or unsustainable use of land also cause erosion and loss of biodiversity. Construction activities related to tourism can cause enormous alteration to wildlife habitats and ecosystems. The extraction of groundwater by some tourism activities can cause desiccation, resulting in loss of biological diversity. Moreover, the disposal of untreated effluents into surrounding rivers and seas can cause eutrophication and it can also introduce a large amount of pathogens into the water body. Disposal of waste produced by the tourism industry my cause major environmental problems.

Co-extinction

The loss of a species is expected to result in the loss of other species that depend on it (co-extinction), leading to cascading effects across tropic levels. Such effects are likely to be most severe in mutualistic and parasitic interactions.

Hybridization

Human-mediated hybridization is one of the leading causes of biodiversity loss. Through introgressive hybridization genetic diversity is reduced, limiting evolutionary flexibility and causing the loss of locally adapted gene along with the populations that once contained them.

Diseases

The loss of biodiversity is closely linked to outbreaks of diseases in the Asia-Pacific regions. Despite increasing health control measures, parasitic and infectious diseases have been emerging and recurring in South-East Asia- which is a recognized hotspot for biodiversity and which is suffering from rapid and extensive erosion of that diversity. Biodiversity changes that occur through the fragmentation and degradation of natural habitats, particularly forested areas, increase the proximity wildlife to humans and their domestic animals. These result in increased health risks through the increased transmission of zoonotic diseases. The number of zoonotic disease outbreaks is positively correlated with the number of threatened mammal and bird species while the number of vector-borne disease outbreak is negatively correlated with forest cover, denoting “the potential role of biodiversity as a buffer of pathogen spread”.

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