The effect of anthropogenic ecological stressors

Biodiversity is the variation among organisms and ecological systems at every environmental level. However, the simplest way to study these organisms is to observe the richness of the species. Species richness involves observing the number of species found within a certain patch (Ricklefs 2008). The dispersal of the species involves organisms entering and exiting patches to inhabit another patch. Dispersal may affect the distribution of the organism or the overall fitness of the population thus harming the species richness or possible increasing the richness (Ricklefs 2008).

There are multiple factors that can affect the species richness of an organism, known as anthropogenic ecological stressors (Thompson and Shurin 2012). There is a wide variety of these ecological stressors ranging from pollution, climate change, and the introduction of invasive species, habitat destruction and the change in environmental conditions locally and globally (Thompson and Shurin 2012). These ecological stressors can occur individually or several may take place at one time thus interacting with one another and causing change to the resident species. Multiple ecological stressors applied can have a great impact on biodiversity and the overall ecosystem function (Christensen et al. 2006). The stressors can be predicted due to changes in the environment, yet there is no control on how forcefully they are applied and when they will occur (Christensen et al. 2006).

Biodiversity in freshwater is known to be extremely vulnerable to climate. In response to the increase in temperatures due to climate change, organisms are expanding their ranges to higher latitudes and altitudes (Heino et al 2009). Therefore they are shifting their overall distributi...

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...ent that is experiencing constant changes, thus relating back to the spatial insurance hypothesis.

Works Cited

Christensen, M.R., Graham, M.D., Vinebrooke, R.D., Findlay, D.L., Paterson, M.J., Turner, M.A. 2006. Multiple antrhopgenic stressors cause ecological surprises in boreal lakes. Global Change Biology, 12: 2316-2322.

Heino, J., Virkkala, R. and Toivonen, H. 2009. Climate change and freshwater biodiversity: detected patterns, future trends and adaptations in northern regions. Biological Reviews, 84: 39-54.

Ricklefs, R.E. 2008. Community Structure. Pages 376, 413 in J. Correa and S. Moran, editors. The Economy of Nature. W.H. Freeman and Company, New York, USA.

Thompson, P.L. and Shurin, J.B. 2012. Regional zooplankton biodiversity provides limited buffering of pond ecosystems against climate change. Journal of Animal Ecology, 81: 251-259.