A UN-backed report says a million species are at risk of extinction, and warns biodiversity loss and failure to conserve ecosystems has catastrophic effects on people as well as nature. What are the possible ways in which humans are getting affected?
The effect on humans can come from many different fields, here are just a few:
Medicine: Some chemical compounds in plants and animals can be helpful in treating dangerous medical conditions. A typical example is rare rain-forest plants that we might never have seen but can provide cures for currently incurable diseases. If this plant was extinct, we might not be able to find a cure for a certain disease.
Food: Our current agricultural practice using only one variety of a particular crop can be very sensitive to disturbances or plant pathogens. Imagine if a pathogen prefers the current variety of rice, and entire harvests are wiped out by pathogen that can't be stopped. In these rare cases it would be helpful to have other varieties of that crop that we can breed with to avoid the variety specific pathogen. If this variety was extinct, we might not be able to grow rice anymore.
Engineering: The sub-field of biomimetics (the concept of creating artificial materials from natural materials) have grown hugely the last few years. Imagine finding a material naturally created by some organism that would be very helpful in our future scientific development but that is unfeasible to harvest. In these cases engineers can try to engineer an artificial material from this natural one using it's physical and chemical structure. If this organism was extinct, this important material might never be artificially recreated.
Biology: By investigating plant and animals we can gain important clues of the origin of life, how evolution works and specific life histories of these species. The species sensitive to extinction have different aspects to their biology than species not sensitive to extinction, this provides clues otherwise lost. If rare and scientifically interesting species got extinct, we would lose the option to study them and all they have to teach us.
Uncertainty: We might not even know how the loss of certain species might affect ecosystems, foodwebs and our plant before it is forever lost, and at that point it is too late to reverse course to prevent the extinction. The uncertainty and lack of foresight into the consequences is one of the most dangerous thing about species extinction.
The effect on humans can come from many different fields, here are just a few:
Medicine: Some chemical compounds in plants and animals can be helpful in treating dangerous medical conditions. A typical example is rare rain-forest plants that we might never have seen but can provide cures for currently incurable diseases. If this plant was extinct, we might not be able to find a cure for a certain disease.
Food: Our current agricultural practice using only one variety of a particular crop can be very sensitive to disturbances or plant pathogens. Imagine if a pathogen prefers the current variety of rice, and entire harvests are wiped out by pathogen that can't be stopped. In these rare cases it would be helpful to have other varieties of that crop that we can breed with to avoid the variety specific pathogen. If this variety was extinct, we might not be able to grow rice anymore.
Engineering: The sub-field of biomimetics (the concept of creating artificial materials from natural materials) have grown hugely the last few years. Imagine finding a material naturally created by some organism that would be very helpful in our future scientific development but that is unfeasible to harvest. In these cases engineers can try to engineer an artificial material from this natural one using it's physical and chemical structure. If this organism was extinct, this important material might never be artificially recreated.
Biology: By investigating plant and animals we can gain important clues of the origin of life, how evolution works and specific life histories of these species. The species sensitive to extinction have different aspects to their biology than species not sensitive to extinction, this provides clues otherwise lost. If rare and scientifically interesting species got extinct, we would lose the option to study them and all they have to teach us.
Uncertainty: We might not even know how the loss of certain species might affect ecosystems, foodwebs and our plant before it is forever lost, and at that point it is too late to reverse course to prevent the extinction. The uncertainty and lack of foresight into the consequences is one of the most dangerous thing about species extinction.
No of species becomes endanger and extinct cause imbalance ecology and food chain. So entire energy transfer disturbed
The people should awerness about this concern
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