Habitat Loss, Essay Example

While there are many different terms within ecology, habitat is one of the most important in the science of ecology today. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica (2015), habitat is “place where an organism or a community of organisms lives, including all living and nonliving factors or conditions of the surrounding environment” (2015). In ecology, this definition of habitat is closely aligned with protection of the natural environment (or habitat) of many species. These can any type of species – from caterpillars to flowers. Due to population growth and pollution, the habitats of a great number of differing species are at risk. Building and construction cause fragmented landscapes that do not give many species enough room in which to thrive, and many simply cannot get to the other side of the road. Pollution tends to seek into the water supplies and foods species are dependent on for survival; thus causing dwindling numbers for those exposed.

For example, the plight of the long-billed curlew is one of many species of bird that have been dwindling due to a host of environmental ills. One of the greatest of these ills is that of habitat loss. This threat is something the long-billed curlew (and many other water birds) has to contend with. Before the Gold Rush in California’s Sacramento Valley , the long-billed curlew fed primarily on “shrimp and crabs burrowed deeply in tidal mudflats and earthworms buried in pastures” (p.1). Yet, with the onset of industrial agriculture and building, these foods, which once thrived in native grassland, are much harder to come by. If fact, less than 1% of the remaining grasses in this area are native, and freshwater marshes have been replaced by 94% farmland.

Nonetheless, all is not lost. Within the last few years, it has been noted that the long-billed curlew and other species of water bird are taking advantage of the rice fields that have become an agriculture staple in this part of California. The rice is harvested once a year, and traditionally the growers would dry out their fields after harvest in the autumn and burn the remaining stalks. However, due to public outcry about this (the smell and the ash were horrible for two weeks every year), the growers had to find another solution. Ultimately, what they discovered was that by keeping water in the fields, the stalks broke down in the anaerobic conditions and provided invaluable waterfowl habitat. This has been particularly important since it has been realized that long-billed curlews have site fidelity, and can return to these new feeding grounds each winter. Another opportunity to provide the curlew with new habitat is that of creating islands in the fields that could serve as nesting sites for a number of species; some of the growers are trying this method.

Ultimately, for any species to have a habitat that is healthy and undisturbed there must be support from the larger biotic community.  A community is “an interacting group of various species in a common location” Encyclopedia Britannica (2015), that typically work together to biologically conserve an entire area. If the habitat within the community is not healthy, then the community, as a whole, will not be healthy. Whether we are discussing habitat or community, they are linking together, and both must be viable to promote species conservation.

References

Encyclopedia Britannica. Habitat, 2015. Web http://www.britannica.com/science/habitat-biology

Encyclopedia Britannica. Community, 2015. Web http://www.britannica.com/science/community-Ecology.

Stap, Don. Grains of Change. 2011. Audubon Society. Web https://www.audubon.org/magazine/march-april-2011/grains-change