Hi Mahajan,
As far as I know HIPPO is more an acronym than a concept. It is used to mention at once five of the major threats to biodiversity (Habitat Loss, Invasive Species, Pollution, Population growth, and Overharvesting). If I am not wrong it was first used by E.O. Wilson in 2005.
I may be wrong, but this is by no means an operational concept. Yet I would be interested if someone has another view to share and discuss.
Regards,
Tito
I teach the HIPPO concept in my Introductory Environmental Science class. Dr. de Morais is correct; it is a way of remembering the major threats to biodiversity, in order of their importance (habitat loss is the greatest threat, followed by invasive species, etc.). I have never heard of it being used as anything other than as a teaching tool.
as Tito said, it (HIPPO just acronym) is commonly used to address major threats of biodiversity loss or ecosystem destruction which at the end will cause species extinction. So, Habitat loss, Invasive, Pollution, Population, and Over-exploitation (HIPPO) are five phenomena largely responsible for the current mass extinction event. For teaching tool (as Aborn said) the acronym HIPPO is easy to remember. One of those threats, invasive species becomes a hot issue. It is because, an exotic species can out-compete native species, cause disease in native species, prey on native species degrade habitats—erosion, loss of soil or change natural processes (natural fire protection) so big problems both for native and ecosystem which result in genetic erosion of native species in the ecosystem. i hope it is helpful, for detail information you could access any website because HIPPO are common issue in biodiversity loss or conservation.
Thanks for the explanation of HIPPO. I went through some literature. All of you (Dr. de Morais , Dr. Aborn and Dr. Hari) have explained it very nicely. Thanks a lot to all of you.
I use it in teaching as well, but I'm careful to explain that population growth is a root cause, whereas the other four are proximate causes. I also add climate change (even though E O Wilson, when asked about it, described it as "a very big H", as well as disease (which, until a few yrs ago, wasn't accepted as a major cause of biodiversity loss - though of course, now we know different). Finally, overexploitation has now surpassed habitat change/loss as the main threat to most species (according to anecdotal evidence from many of my colleagues and studies that were published in 2015 and 2016).
There is this paper on the topic published in 2015
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/2281/9b8596cafc56c9ec578439e4009343d57107.pdf
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