Species diversity and human activities

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Impact of agriculture:

  • Agricultural ecosystems are controlled by humans
  • Farmers often select species for particular qualities that make them more productive
  • As a result the number species and the genetic variety of alleles the possess is reduced to the few that exhibit the desired features
  • To be economic the number of individuals of these desired species needs to be large
  • Any particular area can only suport a certain amount of biomass
  • If most of the area is taken up by the one species that the farmer considers desirable it follows that there if a smaller area available for all the other species
  • These many other species have to compete for what little space and resources are available
  • Many will not survive this competition
  • Even if species evolved to adapt to changes the population of the species would be considerably reduced
  • Pesticides are used to exclude these species because they compete for light, mineral ions, water and food required by the farmed

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