Ecotasia's video: Why Deforestation and Habitat Loss are so Bad: Edge Effects and Extinction Debts explained

Every minute an area the size of a football field is clearcut in the Amazon basin. The mind-boggling amount of habitat destruction that has happened and continues to happen is the current greatest contributor to the biodiversity crisis we are in. Habitat destruction’s primary impact is rendering areas completely changed and uninhabitable to certain native species, but also leaving behind habitat fragments that remain uncleared and seemingly natural, but are uninhabitable as well. When a patch of habitat is split off from a larger contiguous area, which can be as major as mass land conversion, or as minor as being bisected by a road, it effectively becomes an island. Roads are actually quite deceptive, because they are really imposing barriers for many animals to cross despite only being at most a few tens of meters wide, but many small animals simply cannot traverse them, and big roads like major highways can even prove difficult for even large mammals to cross. Even species that can fly like birds can have trouble going over roads, as some tropical forest specialist species won’t fly through such large open spaces. Once a fragment forms and its individual organisms are isolated from those elsewhere, the principles of island biogeography set in. The patch may be too small to support a viable population of a certain species, or the small population remaining may be more susceptible to random events that lead to local extinction. This creates a lag in time between the fragmentation event and the local extinction of certain species. This lag towards a new equilibrium is called Extinction Debt. In conjunction with size another factor makes habitat fragments unsuitable for native species, edge effects. When the area around a fragment is cleared the edges of the fragment change biotically and abiotically. Habitat destruction and fragmentation is a huge issue which is not always easy to correct, usually involving years of removing invasive weeds and planting native plants, however even regular people can help, by planting native species, and making their own small preserve that can help smaller native species thrive and move between reminenant patches. Sources Nobre, Carlos; Lovejoy, Thomas E. (February 1, 2018). "Amazon Tipping Point". Science Advances. 4 (2): eaat2340. doi:10.1126/sciadv.aat2340. ISSN 2375-2548. PMID 29492460. "Facts About Rainforests" Archived 22 October 2015 at the Wayback Machine. The Nature Conservancy. Retrieved 19 October 2015. David Allan, Global deforestation Archived 2011-06-15 at the Wayback Machine, Global change program, University of Michigan, 1 April 2010, accessed 24 May 2013 Carl Kurtz. Iowa's Wild Places: An Exploration With Carl Kurtz (Iowa Heritage Collection) Iowa State Press; 1st edition (July 30, 1996) Pimm Stuart L.; Raven Peter (2000). "Biodiversity: Extinction by numbers". Nature. 403 (6772): 843–845. Bibcode:2000Natur.403..843P. doi:10.1038/35002708. PMID 10706267. Stouffer, P. C.; Strong, C.; Naka, L. N. (2009). "Twenty years of understorey bird extinctions from Amazonian rain forest fragments: consistent trends and landscape-mediated dynamics". Diversity and Distributions. 15: 88–97. doi:10.1111/j.1472-4642.2008.00497.x. Murcia, C. (1995). Edge effects in fragmented forests: implications for conservation. Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 10(2), 58–62. doi: 10.1016/s0169-5347(00)88977-6 If you like animals and nature Please Subscribe and Like This is Backyard Expeditions. Here you can find wildlife footage and short documentaries on the natural world. Nature is full of surprises, often amazing things are happening just feet from you door. I am a biology student who was inspired by the likes of the BBC natural history unit, PBS, and animal planet as a Child. I have also long been a hobbyist photographer, filming interesting things over time. My goal is to document interesting behavior and highlight interesting species I encounter both in exotic locations, and on backyard expeditions. Underwater Worlds https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYx5OP7sbAZAJNusnxcNoHUx_sNDYT92k Journey through the Undergrowth (Macro footage of insects and Arachnids) https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYx5OP7sbAZC-4h2hpK09I-FF563TQzlc Bird Playlist https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZqNM9k7OoY&list=PLYx5OP7sbAZACa11LD1wDQhn0SI2-SV1f Birding Playlist https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYx5OP7sbAZAYjq78IuGJI4wc0GXDRHTd Conservation Playlist https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYx5OP7sbAZAIUm5UCl84q2KU2nI3YLpx also Check Out my Photography Adventure Blog https://johnjacksonphoto.blogspot.com/