Habitat Destruction Our planet is continually changing, causing habitats to be altered and modified.

Natural changes tend to occur at a gradual pace, usually causing only a slight impact on individual species. However, when changes occur at a fast pace, there is little or no time for individual species to react and adjust to new circumstances. This can create disastrous results, and for this reason, rapid habitat loss is the primary cause of species endangerment. The strongest forces in rapid habitat loss are human beings. Nearly every region of the earth has been affected by human activity, particularly during this past century. The loss of microbes in soils that formerly supported tropical forests, the extinction of fish and various aquatic species in polluted habitats, and changes in global climate brought about by the release of greenhouse gases are all results of human activity. It can be difficult for an individual to recognize the effects that humans have had on specific species. It is hard to identify or predict human effects on individual species and habitats, especially during a human lifetime. But it is quite apparent that human activity has greatly contributed to species endangerment. For example, although tropical forests may look as though they are lush, they are actually highly susceptible to destruction. This is because the soils in which they grow are lacking in nutrients. It may take Centuries to re-grow a forest that was cut down by humans or destroyed by fire, and many of the world's severely threatened animals and plants live in these forests. If the current rate of forest loss continues, huge quantities of plant and animal species will disappear.

http://www.endangeredspecie.com/causes_of_endangerment.htm#Habitat Destruction

Habitat destruction and the extinction debt

DAVID TILMAN , ROBERT M. MAY , CLARENCE L. LEHMAN & MARTIN A. NOWAK
*

Department of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior, 1987 Upper Buford Circle, University of Minnesota, St Paul, Minnesota 55108, USA Department of Zoology, Oxford University, South Parks Road, Oxford 0X1 3PS, UK

HABITAT destruction is the major cause of species extinctions13. Dominant species often are considered to be free of this threat because they are abundant in the undisturbed fragments that remain after destruction. Here we describe a model that explains multispecies coexistence in patchy habitats4 and which predicts that their abundance may be fleeting. Even moderate habitat destruction is predicted to cause time-delayed but deterministic extinction of the dominant competitor in remnant patches. Further species are predicted to become extinct, in order from the best to the poorest competitors, as habitat destruction increases. More-over, the more fragmented a habitat already is, the greater is the number of extinctions caused by added destruction. Because such extinctions occur generations after fragmentation, they represent a debta future ecological cost of current habitat destruction.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v371/n6492/abs/371065a0.html

EXTINCTION

The greatest loss with the longest-lasting effects from the ongoing destruction of wilderness will be the mass extinction of species that provide Earth with biodiversity. Although great extinctions have occurred in the past, none has occurred as rapidly or has been so much the result of the actions of a single species. The extinction rate of today may be 1,000 to 10,000 times the biological normal, or background, extinction rate of 1-10 species extinctions per year. So far there is no evidence for the massive species extinctions predicted by the species-area curve in the chart below. However, it is possible that species extinction, like global warming, has a time lag, and the loss of forest species due to forest clearing in the past may not be apparent yet today. Ward (1997) uses the term "extinction debt" to describe such extinction of species and populations long after habitat alteration:

Historic mass extinctions

Decades or centuries after a habitat perturbation, extinction related to the perturbation may still be taking place. This is perhaps the least understood and most insidious aspect of habitat destruction. We can clear-cut a forest and then point out that the

attendant extinctions are low, when in reality a larger number of extinctions will take place in the future. We will have produced an extinction debt that has to be paid. . . We might curtail our hunting practices when some given population falls to very low numbers and think that we have succeeded in "saving" the species in question, when in reality we have produced an extinction debt that ultimately must be paid in full. . . Extinction debts are bad debts, and when they are eventually paid, the world is a poorer place. For example, the disappearance of crucial pollinators will not cause the immediate extinction of tree species with life cycles measured in centuries. Similarly, a study of West African primates found an extinction debt of over 30 percent of the total primate fauna as a result of historic deforestation. This suggests that protection of remaining forests in these areas might not be enough to prevent extinctions caused by past habitat loss. While we may be able to predict the effects of the loss of some species, we know too little about the vast majority of species to make reasonable projections. The unanticipated loss of unknown species will have a magnified effect over time. The process of extinction is enormously complex, resulting from perhaps hundreds or even thousands of factors, many of which scientists (let alone lay people) fail to grasp. The extinction of small populations, either endangered or isolated from the larger gene pool by fragmentation or natural barriers like water or mountain ranges, is the best modeled and understood form of extinction. Since the standard was set by MacArthur and Wilson in their masterwork The Theory of Island Biogeography (1967), much work has been done modeling the effects of population size and land area on the survival of species. The number of individuals in a given population is always fluctuating due to numerous influences, from extrinsic changes in the surrounding environment to intrinsic forces within a species' own genes. This population fluctuation is especially a problem for populations in isolated forest fragments and species that are critically endangered throughout their range. When a population falls below a certain number, known as the minimum viable population (MVP), it is unlikely to recover. Thus the minimum viable population is often considered the extinction threshold for a population or species. There are three common forces that can drive a species with a population under MVP to extinction: demographic stochasticity, environmental stochasticity, and reduced genetic diversity. Demographic stochasticity involves birth and death rates of the individuals within a species. As the population size decreases, random quirks in mating, reproduction, and survival of young can have a significant outcome for a species. This is especially true in species with low birth rates (i.e. some primates, birds of prey, elephants), since their populations take a longer time to recover. Social dysfunction also plays an important role in a population's survival or demise. Once a population's size falls below a critical number, the social structure of a species may no longer function. For example many gregarious species live in herds or packs which enable the species to defend themselves from predators, find food, or choose mates. In these species, once the

population is too small to sustain an effective herd or pack, the population may crash. Among species that are widely dispersed like large cats, finding a mate may be impossible once the population density falls below a certain point. Many insect species use chemical odors or pheromeres to communicate and attract mates. As population density falls, there is less probability that an individual's chemical message will reach a potential mate, and reproductive rates may decrease. Similarly, as plant species become rarer and more widely scattered, the distance between plants increases and pollination becomes less likely. Environmental stochasticity is caused by randomly occurring changes in weather and food supply, and natural disasters like fire, flood, and drought. In populations confined to a small area, a single drought, bad winter, or fire can eliminate all individuals. Reduced genetic diversity is a substantial obstacle blocking the recovery of small populations. Small populations have a smaller genetic base than larger populations. Without the influx of individuals from other populations, a population's genome stagnates and loses the genetic variability to adapt to changing conditions. Small populations are also prone to genetic drift where rare traits have a high probability of being lost with each successive generation. The smaller the population, the more vulnerable it is to demographic stochasticity, environmental stochasticity, and reduced genetic diversity. These factors, often working in concert, tend to further reduce population size and drive the species toward extinction. This trend is known as the extinction vortex. See the box on the right for an example of an extinction vortex. Some mathematical ecologists have suggested that population fluctuations may be governed by properties of chaos making the behavior of the system (the fluctuation of a species's population size) nearly impossible to predict due to the complex dynamics within a given ecosystem.
http://rainforests.mongabay.com/0908.htm