international biodiversity day

source: https://www.safeworldhse.com/2020/04/biodiversity-types-importance-loss-conservation.html

BIODIVERSITY DAY

Hello everyone!
As the title says, today is international biodiversity day.
We celebrate it on May 22. since 1992 to commemorate the adoption of the Convention on Biological Diversity at the Rio Earth Summit.

View from Sljeme mountain on Zagreb.

But what is biodiversity?

First thought about biodiversity is large mammals like lions, elephants, whales (yes, they are mammals), deers, etc. And you are not wrong, they are an important part of the ecological system, therefor they contribute to biodiversity. But it is so, so, so much more than that.

Biodiversity is variability of all life on Earth. But as you can see on a picture below, it does not contain only species but also interspecies genetic variety.

source: https://filtrextechnologies.com/22nd-may-international-day-of-bio-diversity/

Is it all the same?

All life on Earth has equal value and must be protected at all cost.
But when we talk about biodiversity distribution, there we can see some imbalance.
Geographically speaking greatest biodiversity is in tropical forests. They cover less than 10% of Earth's surface, but contains nearly 90% of World species.

source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latitudinal_gradients_in_species_diversity

With that logic, we can see that biggest biodiversity is near the Equator (line between north and south pole) and as we go towards poles it reduces. But that doesn't mean we don't have to protect poles. On the contrary, we need to protect it even more due to its rarity.

Reasons for biodiversity loss

Now we will go on some darker topic and a little bit of math.

Scientists estimate that since 1970 we have lost nearly 58% of world species. From that number, 39% accounts for land species, 39% marine, and 76% of fresh water wildlife!

As expected biggest loss is in Latin America due to biggest biodiversity.
It is interesting that high-income countries have a 10% increase in total biodiversity. Why and how is another story for some other post.

The biggest threats are deforestation due to agriculture and residential buildings.
Air pollution, which leads to acidic rains (no more such a big problem due to strict regulations), and ice melting due to global increase in temperature. Noise and light pollution have a great impact on birds and insects, and whales (link on a short documentary at the end). Overfishing destroys marine life and by hunting biggest specimens they disable mating and regeneration of fish number.

Invasive species are also one of the biggest problems. Invasive species are
non-native species that are imported or accidentally released into natural ecosystems. The problem with them is that they overthrow native species taking their food and living area leading them to extinction and disbalance food chain.

Here are some infographics that shows biggest problems for nature. You can find more of them on the link below.

source: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/AWnwua2v8TO-AfH229A4ulcfwNhkNHMsH3GvaCxLtDZEzpH8Nqyl4Nw/

Thank you

hope that this was informal and that I didn't go too much of topic 😅.
In the end, I would like to share two, for me very interesting videos.

first one is about species lost and future projections: Year zero, when wild animals are gone.

The second one about noise pollution in the sea: Why the Ocean Is Getting Louder | Underwater Noise Pollution.

Hope that you will find it interesting as well.
See you soon.