Ecosystem decay

<h2 id="overview">Overview</h2>
<p>Ecosystem decay is a natural phenomenon that has several resulting features.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:3" href="#fn:3"><sup>3</sup></a>
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<ul><li>Decline of native populations of animals</li>
<li>Decrease in genetic diversity</li>
<li>Decrease of the interior:<a href="/facts/Edge_effect/FFgB6BxH">edge</a> ratio</li>
<li>Isolation of an area of viable habitat</li>
<li>Reduction in viable habitats and often extreme separation</li></ul>
<h2 id="process">Process</h2>
<p>The process through which ecosystem decay occurs can be long and complicated or short and hasty. Overall, it still follows some basic guidelines. First, a piece of habitat is surrounded and thus isolated by farmland or cities.
Secondly, pollination of the plants immediately ceases and the number of species thins out. Thirdly, through generations of inbreeding and thus higher birth mortality than birth survival rate and infertile dirt, the forest fragment will slowly decline to nothing.
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<h2 id="causes">Causes</h2>
<p>Ecosystem decay is commonly caused by the harvesting of rain forest in appliance to certain laws or illegally for profit by humans. Certain countries such as <a href="/facts/Brazil/QHkG46GL">Brazil</a> prohibit the harvesting of <a href="/facts/Brazil_nut/eCSRJ3Vl">Brazil nut trees</a> and groves of this species causing forest fragmentation and thus causing ecosystem decay to occur. Cities, roads, farms and any other substantial barrier impeding and animals habitat can be a direct or an indirect cause. Naturally, fires and rising sea levels on low land can also cause habitat fragmentation and thus ecosystem decay. Although this process is much more lengthy, many species such as the <a href="/facts/Irish_Elk/kQl30IY9">Irish Elk</a> and several species of ancient <a href="/facts/Australian_megafauna/fIwzhCFY">Australian Marsupials</a> have been indirectly killed this way with contributions by <a href="/facts/Climate_Change/rEN4BDE7">Climate Change</a>, <a href="/facts/Glaciation/alIAm38r">Glaciation</a> and <a href="/facts/Forest_fire/LU3797A0">Forest Fires</a>.
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<h2 id="studies">Studies</h2>
<p>Eleonore Setz<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:4" href="#fn:4"><sup>4</sup></a> was studying a patch of equatorial rainforest named reserve #1202 containing <i><a href="/facts/White-faced_saki/22tFqYV6">Pithecia pithecia</a> (</i>white-faced sakis), to study the effects of ecosystem decay. The 9.2 <a href="/facts/Hectare/DPz2HDGr">hectare</a> (less than 25 acre) area had been isolated for five years when <a href="/facts/David_Quammen/G3N1EL91">David Quammen</a> noted results on the fragmentation of their habitat which resulted in them being stranded. The population of <i>P. pithecia</i> was slowly declining at the time of the study and the population had declined to six.
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<h3>General references</h3>
<ul><li>Harris, Larry D. (1984). The Fragmented Forest: Island Biogeography Theory and the Preservation of Biotic Diversity. The University of Chicago Press. <a href="/facts/ISBN_(identifier)/15AdSPa9">ISBN</a> 0-226-31763-3.</li>
<li>Ecosystem Decay of Amazonian Forest Fragments:a 22-Year Investigation (Conservation Biology, Pages 605–618 Volume 16, No. 3, June 2002) William F. Laurance, Thomas E. Lovejoy, Heraldo L. Vasconcelos, Emilio M. Bruna, Raphael K. Didham, Philip C. Stouffer, Claude Gascon, Richard O. Bierregaard, Susan Laurance and Erica Sampaio</li>
<li>Mokross, Karl; Ryder, Thomas B.; Côrtes, Marina Corrêa; Wolfe, Jared D.; Stouffer, Philip C. (2014-02-07). <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3871315">"Decay of interspecific avian flock networks along a disturbance gradient in Amazonia"</a>. <i>Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences</i>. 281 (1776): 20132599. <a href="/facts/Doi_(identifier)/muM9Etpq">doi</a>:<a href="https://doi.org/10.1098%2Frspb.2013.2599">10.1098/rspb.2013.2599</a>. <a href="/facts/ISSN_(identifier)/DPAflDvU">ISSN</a> <a href="https://search.worldcat.org/issn/0962-8452">0962-8452</a>. <a href="/facts/PMC_(identifier)/dX1zMt71">PMC</a> <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3871315">3871315</a>. <a href="/facts/PMID_(identifier)/JlHAvMHt">PMID</a> <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24335983">24335983</a>.</li></ul>

<h2 id="references">References</h2>

<ol>
<li id="fn:1"><p>Warf. Encyclopedia of Geography. p. 856. <a href="#fnref:1" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li>
<li id="fn:2"><p>Chase, Jonathan M.; Blowes, Shane A.; Knight, Tiffany M.; Gerstner, Katharina; May, Felix (2020). "Ecosystem decay exacerbates biodiversity loss with habitat loss". Nature. 584 (7820): 238–243. doi:10.1038/s41586-020-2531-2. PMID 32728213. S2CID 256820724. <a href="/wiki/Doi_(identifier)" target="_blank">/wiki/Doi_(identifier)</a> <a href="#fnref:2" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li>
<li id="fn:3"><p>Mokross, Karl; Ryder, Thomas B.; Côrtes, Marina Corrêa; Wolfe, Jared D.; Stouffer, Philip C. (2014-02-07). "Decay of interspecific avian flock networks along a disturbance gradient in Amazonia". Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences. 281 (1776): 20132599. doi:10.1098/rspb.2013.2599. ISSN 0962-8452. PMC 3871315. PMID 24335983. <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3871315" target="_blank">https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3871315</a> <a href="#fnref:3" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li>
<li id="fn:4"><p>Quammen (1996). The Song Of The Dodo. Touchstone. pp. 76–80. ISBN 0-684-80083-7. <a href="0-684-80083-7" target="_blank">0-684-80083-7</a> <a href="#fnref:4" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li>
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Ecosystem decay open-in-new

Ecosystem decay