University:
University of Georgia
Course:
BIOL-1110 | Biological Diversity
Academic year:

2024
Views:

350

Pages:

1
Author:

Nicole Wang

Biodiversity and the Amazon Rainforest The Amazon rainforest is one of the most bio-diverse habitats on Earth. Biodiversity means a variety of organisms from mammals to microbes. This variety of life in an ecosystem is important because all the organisms play a part in keeping it healthy and thriving. This is good in its own right for a living system, but for humans it also means a source of food, medicines, and other resources. Healthy ecosystems provide pollinators for food crops, control crop pests, disperse the seeds of wild plants, stop storm surges on our coasts, recycle soil nutrients, and purify polluted waters. A healthy Amazon rainforest absorbs a huge amount of carbon dioxide created around the world and pumps out clean oxygen for us to breathe. It plays a role in regulating the world’s climate. Unfortunately, the Amazon rainforest, along with many wild places are experiencing escalating habitat loss. The Amazon rainforest is being slashed and burned to clear the land for cattle ranching. Brazil exports more beef than any other country in the world to fast food restaurants in the United States and Europe (and 150 other countries). It is estimated that they are raising upward of 232 million cattle (in 2018) for this market every year and need grazing land to feed them. When an environment changes in ways that affect a place’s physical characteristics, temperature, or availability of resources, some organisms survive and reproduce, others move to new locations, yet others move into the transformed environment, and some die. When areas of the Amazon rainforest are cleared for raising cattle, almost all the original organisms living there die. Because of what we know about the value of this forest, this habitat loss concerns biologists and climate specialists around the world.

Biodiversity and the Amazon Rainforest

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