E. O Wilson Invasive Species

Extinction: Most species become extinct because they can’t cope with the environmental change, and also because of introduced species that turned into competitors for

Some of the ways we have extinguished species include, climate change, air pollution causing ocean acidification, accidental imports of plants animals or fungi, fragmenting and destroying habitats, and poaching and killing animals for resources. I agree with Kolbert. We humans are making the planet difficult for other species to live in. One of the ways that we are killing species is accidental or intentional imports of plants and animals. Kolbert talked about the Pangea.

In the book The Sixth Extinction written by Elizabeth Kolbert there are a lot of examples that are going on in the world today and also examples of things that started when the first human being was around. This book talks about how we are in the sixth mass extinction, and that is caused by humans. Overall the book goes chapter by chapter and talks about the different mass extinctions there have been, and how they were caused, but also the book talks about different species that have gone extinct and the reasons why. For example the book talks about golden frogs that are located in Panama and how they were seen everywhere located in El Valle de Anton, but they suddenly started disappearing. They were disappearing because of a chytrid fungis cause by humans, when humans travel they were bring this fungis to different places, this ended up killing the frogs (Chapter 1, Kolbert). That is just one example, but throughout the book Kolbert talks about different extinctions like this and what caused them.

Invasive species are an important mechanism of this extinction because there are many different species of things that have been relocating. An example of this she talks about in the book is how the American chestnut was effected by humans. Humans introduced the chestnut to a fungus that made it poisonous to other species. Which

The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History, was written by American author and journalist Elizabeth Kolbert in 2014. Kolbert’s scientific non-fiction book won the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction in 2015 and was a New York Times Bestseller (The New Yorker). There have been five mass extinctions on our planet so far, Kolbert’s mission was to find as much information as she could about the sixth extinction. Which she believes is happening in current time, and who does her research show may be responsible? Mankind.

Summarize: The result of one species extinction could potentially be fatal to the environment. In the animal kingdom, there is a food chain. Keystone animals, are the key ingredient to the food chain. When that keystone animals goes extinct, it sets off a chain reaction on the other animal’s food source. This causes one species to flourish and another to dwindle. The environment needs a healthy checks and balance system to keep each animal population under control (Stuart, 1990 ). Humans can cause the keystone animal to become extinct and therefore, responsible for rise and decline of other species, ultimately, throwing the food chain off balance.

In the ecosystem organisms rely on each other for food and protection. The Food chain is like a pyramid you have the producers, primary consumers, secondary consumers, tertiary consumers, and quaternary consumers. It’s an almost perfect balance and if any level were to just stop existing then the food chain would be destroyed. An example of organisms relying on others is an issue of isle royale were the wolves and moose population are in jeopardy. This relationship is important because without the other animal the population would die.

There are several hypotheses that are used to explain the causes of mass extinctions. Climate change, the warming or cooling of global environments over a short period of time, can lead to other occurrences. Shifts in climate can cause extinction by

For instance, gray wolves, according to the authors of “Using Small Populations of Wolves for Ecosystem Restoration and Stewardship”, “...influence the abundance of ungulates, which in turn affects the structure and composition of plant communities”(Licht et al. 2). Wolves prey on herbivores such as deer and elk, keeping their population under control and thus allowing more plant species that the prey feed on to grow and reproduce. If wolves were to go extinct the prey populations would soar. There would be no predators to hunt the animals, so they would spend less time worrying about predators and more time feeding. This would drastically reduce the population of plant species that the prey animals feed on until there is not enough food to sustain the ever growing prey species. The prey species population would begin to die of starvation and the few animals left would develop a variety of diseases due to malnutrition and genes that were passed through generations of animals. The genes would have not passed through the animals if the wolves had not gone extinct. This is due to the fact that wolves would have eaten the weak prey animals, therefore reducing the chance of weak and sickly offspring and improving the health of future generations of prey animals. Additionally, with the plant

Predators/prey relationships play a big role in animal populations. If the balance between predators and prey is changed, populations are changed. The white- tailed deer populations in some areas has grown too large because there are no natural predators.

Several man-made threats have accelerated extinction rates across the globe, such as global warming, pollution, and introduced species. Current extinction rates

Forests have been cut, crops planted, pastures seeded, and urban areas paved. One of the most troubling consequences of human modification of ecosystems is an ongoing loss of species and therefore a loss of biodiversity around the world. The current extinctions have a human cause: habitat loss (such as clearing of tropical rainforests); the introduction of invasive species; unregulated hunting and fishing; and pollution of water, air, and

Habitat destruction, deforestation, ozone depletion, global warming, and poaching. These actions and ecological happenings are creating a world where animals are going extinct at rapid rates. Our world is on the brink of what scientists believe is the sixth mass extinction. Unlike the five previous mass extinction, the latest one killing a majority of the dinosaurs, the main causes for this current extinction are anthropogenic reasons, not natural events.

Bill Freedmen, author of “Endangered Species—Human Causes Of Extinction and Endangerment” notes, “scientists approximate that present extinction rates are 1,000 to 10,000 times higher than the average natural extinction rate.” These distressing numbers should be acted upon to save the endangered species and avoid the catastrophic change to this planet if these species were to become extinct. In order to produce change, people need to recognize that habitat loss, climate change, and poaching are all factors in why our animal species are going extinct.

One specific way that humans have begun the process of world extinction is through their incessant meddling with the environment. Not only do people destroy the environment with our wreckage and pollution, but the human race has introduced species into other ecosystems, causing massive repercussions. Referred to as invasive species, their introduction into a