生物多样性丧失

生物多样性丧失是與生物多樣性破壞有關的現象，例如物种绝灭、棲息地內物种的减少。农业的過度發展會破坏栖息地。棲息地內物種減少有可能是暫時現象，也有可能是永久現象。 有部分觀點認為，人口增长和過度消耗是造成生物多样性丧失的主要因素。然而其他科学家对此並不讚同。 气候变化可能也是導致生物多样性丧失的一大因素。 如果全球变暖的速度加劇，會導致珊瑚礁從地球上消失。 Ketcham, Christopher. Addressing Climate Change Will Not "Save the Planet". The Intercept. December 3, 2022 [December 8, 2022]. （原始内容存档于2024-02-18）.  Caro, Tim; Rowe, Zeke; et al. An inconvenient misconception: Climate change is not the principal driver of biodiversity loss. Conservation Letters. 2022, 15 (3): e12868. S2CID 246172852. doi:10.1111/conl.12868 .  Bradshaw, Corey J. A.; Ehrlich, Paul R.; Beattie, Andrew; Ceballos, Gerardo; Crist, Eileen; Diamond, Joan; Dirzo, Rodolfo; Ehrlich, Anne H.; Harte, John; Harte, Mary Ellen; Pyke, Graham. Underestimating the Challenges of Avoiding a Ghastly Future. Frontiers in Conservation Science. 2021, 1. doi:10.3389/fcosc.2020.615419 .  Ripple WJ, Wolf C, Newsome TM, Galetti M, Alamgir M, Crist E, Mahmoud MI, Laurance WF. World Scientists' Warning to Humanity: A Second Notice. BioScience. 13 November 2017, 67 (12): 1026–1028. doi:10.1093/biosci/bix125 . Moreover, we have unleashed a mass extinction event, the sixth in roughly 540 million years, wherein many current life forms could be annihilated or at least committed to extinction by the end of this century.  Cowie RH, Bouchet P, Fontaine B. The Sixth Mass Extinction: fact, fiction or speculation?. Biological Reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society. April 2022, 97 (2): 640–663. PMC 9786292 . PMID 35014169. S2CID 245889833. doi:10.1111/brv.12816 .  Stokstad, Erik. Landmark analysis documents the alarming global decline of nature. Science. 6 May 2019. doi:10.1126/science.aax9287 . For the first time at a global scale, the report has ranked the causes of damage. Topping the list, changes in land use—principally agriculture—that have destroyed habitat. Second, hunting and other kinds of exploitation. These are followed by climate change, pollution, and invasive species, which are being spread by trade and other activities. Climate change will likely overtake the other threats in the next decades, the authors note. Driving these threats are the growing human population, which has doubled since 1970 to 7.6 billion, and consumption. (Per capita of use of materials is up 15% over the past 5 decades.)  Pimm SL, Jenkins CN, Abell R, Brooks TM, Gittleman JL, Joppa LN, et al. The biodiversity of species and their rates of extinction, distribution, and protection. Science. May 2014, 344 (6187): 1246752. PMID 24876501. S2CID 206552746. doi:10.1126/science.1246752. The overarching driver of species extinction is human population growth and increasing per capita consumption.  Cafaro, Philip; Hansson, Pernilla; Götmark, Frank. Overpopulation is a major cause of biodiversity loss and smaller human populations are necessary to preserve what is left (PDF). Biological Conservation. August 2022, 272. 109646 [2023-12-04]. ISSN 0006-3207. S2CID 250185617. doi:10.1016/j.biocon.2022.109646. （原始内容存档 (PDF)于2023-12-08）. Conservation biologists standardly list five main direct drivers of biodiversity loss: habitat loss, overexploitation of species, pollution, invasive species, and climate change. The Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services found that in recent decades habitat loss was the leading cause of terrestrial biodiversity loss, while overexploitation (overfishing) was the most important cause of marine losses (IPBES, 2019). All five direct drivers are important, on land and at sea, and all are made worse by larger and denser human populations.  Crist, Eileen; Mora, Camilo; Engelman, Robert. The interaction of human population, food production, and biodiversity protection. Science. 21 April 2017, 356 (6335): 260–264 [2 January 2023]. Bibcode:2017Sci...356..260C. PMID 28428391. S2CID 12770178. doi:10.1126/science.aal2011. Research suggests that the scale of human population and the current pace of its growth contribute substantially to the loss of biological diversity. Although technological change and unequal consumption inextricably mingle with demographic impacts on the environment, the needs of all human beings—especially for food—imply that projected population growth will undermine protection of the natural world.  Ceballos, Gerardo; Ehrlich, Paul R. Mutilation of the tree of life via mass extinction of animal genera. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 2023, 120 (39): e2306987120. Bibcode:2023PNAS..12006987C. PMC 10523489 . PMID 37722053. doi:10.1073/pnas.2306987120. Current generic extinction rates will likely greatly accelerate in the next few decades due to drivers accompanying the growth and consumption of the human enterprise such as habitat destruction, illegal trade, and climate disruption.  Hughes, Alice C.; Tougeron, Kévin; Martin, Dominic A.; Menga, Filippo; Rosado, Bruno H. P.; Villasante, Sebastian; Madgulkar, Shweta; Gonçalves, Fernando; Geneletti, Davide; Diele-Viegas, Luisa Maria; Berger, Sebastian. Smaller human populations are neither a necessary nor sufficient condition for biodiversity conservation. Biological Conservation. 2023-01-01, 277: 109841. ISSN 0006-3207. doi:10.1016/j.biocon.2022.109841  （英语）. Through examining the drivers of biodiversity loss in highly biodiverse countries, we show that it is not population driving the loss of habitats, but rather the growth of commodities for export, particularly soybean and oil-palm, primarily for livestock feed or biofuel consumption in higher income economies.  Climate change and biodiversity (PDF). Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. 2005 [12 June 2012]. （原始内容 (PDF)存档于5 February 2018）.  Climate change, reefs and the Coral Triangle. wwf.panda.org. [9 November 2015]. （原始内容存档于2018-05-02）.  Aldred, Jessica. Caribbean coral reefs 'will be lost within 20 years' without protection. The Guardian. 2 July 2014 [9 November 2015]. （原始内容存档于2022-10-20）.