Pathological Aspect Of Extinction (Part 1 Of 4); Introduction to Conservation

in #steemstem7 years ago


Picture By Mauricio Antón - Wikipedia

A lot of things happened for the past one week, I lost someone that I hold dear, I faced some problems with my research paper, and recently, I was told that one of my cousins was involved in an accident. What a stressful week! Enough is enough. I've decided to distract my mind a little bit by reading a science magazine yesterday. While flipping through the pages, trying to find something that I might be interested in, I stumbled upon the concept of extinction which caught my attention, in which, all of the information was obtained from one of the science fields of study called conservation. This particular domain entails the concept of biological diversity losses on Earth (extinction) and any measures that can be taken to prevent such tragedy.

Biological diversity (biodiversity) is any living organisms which inhabit the earth including its species, population, genes and ecosystem.

Source - Britannica Encyclopaedia

Extinction can be thought as an event which occurred resulting in the obliteration of individual biodiversity. Both of these aspects (biological diversity and extinction) are essential components of conservation which is designed to retain life's diversity at many levels of biological organisation. The study of conservation is broad; there are many factors which need to be considered when we're trying to determine the cause of extinction of a single species.

Any living organisms which survived the threat of extinction possibly lose much of their chances to be diverse as most of the local population which exhibit genetic variation are lost from the species' range. Sometimes, even if some of the species were able to retain the genetic diversity, at one point, the ecosystem was incapable of assuming their standard functions which cause it to shrink which may lead to the threat of extinction. All of these losses were studied under the roof of conservation which may yield an essential piece of information which is vital for the restoration of biodiversity.

The concept of extinction, conservation and ecology can be thought as the relationship between medicine and physiology. Physiology studies the way human's body operated while medicine deals with any particular abnormalities which could affect normal physiological function and the way to treat them. Medicine is a goal-oriented study, and so does conservation. Ecology act as a pointer to indicates in which range of function that can be considered normal in an ecosystem. If some factors or conditions pointed out to the abnormalities, this would be taken care of by conservation; recognising the biological or environmental pathology and executing some plans which could prevent consequences.

Even though conservation has been thought as entirely biological, some of the cause can be traced back to the negative consequences brought by human activities. This issue is particularly tricky as it involved multiple disciplines including:

  • Economics
  • Ethics
  • Law
  • Social Sciences
  • Religion

I'll be dividing this article into 4 parts. All of them would be explaining the pathological features of extinction.

  • #1; Identifying Number of Species
  • #2: Extinction Rate
  • #3; Factor Which Influences Extinction
  • #4; Species Which Are Vulnerable To Extinction

This article would mainly discuss the estimated number of species in the ecosystem. This knowledge is important to a Taxonomist to calculate the rate of extinction of a particular species in order to classify them according to the risk of extinction.


Picture Source - Max Pixel

Introduction to Extinction


I think the general public are well-informed that some of the human activities such as deforestation, logging etc. can directly or indirectly lead to the extinction of several species of living things. This phenomenon is quite different from the progression of natural extinction. When the number of a particular species is declining concerning its inability to adapt to certain climate changes, increase in predators and decrease in prey, this phenomenon is called as the progression to natural extinction.

They will be demolished from the surface of the earth due to their inability to cope with the ecological changes. It is worth noting that, when a particular species are obliterated due to natural extinction, their functions would be taken over by new emerging living creatures which could adapt to specific changes in the environment.


Picture By Bumi Hills Foundation - Wikimedia

Direct extinction is an event whereby any particular species of living things are killed or ripped off from the face of the earth which lead to their destruction. This type of extinction is almost exclusive to the consequences of human's activities on the biodiversity. Poaching and hunting have been thought as favourite activities which led to the supposedly evitable consequences. Amur leopard, for example, has been illegally hunted for their skin which can be sold at a higher price especially in the black market. Before the invention of guns, people hunt for food and some clothing to make themselves comfortable. During that period, human's are said to live harmonious with nature; they kill for the sake of survival.

When guns were invented, the general purpose of hunting is still the same, to survive, but it was worth noting that, guns have made the massive destruction of animals, possible. People were not only hunting for food, but they were also hunting for sport. Hunting activities have been one of the activities which are carried out for amusement making extinction rate to increase rapidly.

Destruction of habitat is an activity which can lead to indirect extinction. Any actions which would lead to the obliteration of a particular species is an act which can contribute to indirect extinction. This phenomenon combined with direct extinction has made the extinction rate to be 1000 times faster than the natural progression, in which if no interventions are made will lead to an even higher percentage of extinction in the future.


Picture By Jami Dwyer - Wikimedia

Estimated Figures of Species


It's important to know how many species are left out there in the ecosystem before we can calculate the estimated rate of extinction that could potentially affect a particular species. This is done to monitor the number of a specific species with respect to the natural progression of extinction or as a consequence of human's activity. However, to know the exact figures of species with a higher degree of certainty were not possible. This degree of uncertainty would lead to some problems with which would lead to higher degree of error in estimating the rate of extinction.

Even though there are 1.9 million species of living things which have been recorded by fellow Taxonomists, only 100,000 of that figures are comprised of:

  • Invertebrates which are frequently collected such as snails and butterflies
  • Some flowering plants
  • Vertebrates who live on terrestrial

Out of the millions of species of living things that have been identified, 10,000 of them were birds in which are increasing year by year. The rate of discovery of new bird's species currently is two new species of birds per year.


Picture By Charlesjsharp - Wikipedia

There are some risks of overestimation and underestimation of species number which could lead to an inaccurate calculation of the rate of extinction of a particular species. We can't say for sure whether any specimen which being examined has not been designated by any people in different countries or even different times. This would lead to an unusually high estimate of species number which would underestimate the actual rate of extinction. In a few environments such as the deep of the oceans and the rainforests, taxonomist estimated that there are many species which are yet to be discovered. This is a potentially significant error which hinders the progression of calculating an estimated number of a particular species for determining their extinction rate.

There are a few situations which illustrate the huge gap between described and undescribed species:

  • The comparison between the number of fungi relative to angiosperms (flowering plants) is a potential source of error. It's estimated that there are 6 times more fungi than flowering plants, and the current number of flowering plants stand at 300,000. If the ratio being provided was, in fact, true, the number of fungi should be around 1.8 million species, but the number which has been discovered was only 70,000 species. That was a relatively wide gap between the known and the unknown.

  • There are about 1 million species of insects which have been discovered, however, the estimated figure of this creature range from 10 to 100 times the number of species we are currently discovered. This number was estimated based on the finding of beetles which inhabit a species of tropical tree. One species of tropical tree alone harbour 163 species of beetle. There are more or less 50,000 distinct species of tree in the tropical forests all over the world which gives a potential number of 8 million species of tropical's beetles alone. As it is estimated 40% of the known insects are beetles, the number of insects potentially lives in a tropical forest alone could reach 20 million species.


Picture Source - Pexels

The data at hand versus the number of species estimated to roam this earth told us, there are many creatures out there who were waiting to be discovered, but how accurate the estimation is? When the number of an actual species is an estimation, the rate could differ a hundredfold which translated as highly inaccurate. Predicting the number of species available to calculate the potential rate of losses is an arduous task.

The Classification of Endangered Species


It's imperative for us to identify the number of species out there which can be potentially on the brink of extinction so that appropriate measure can be taken. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) plays a greater role in conserving biodiversity by instituting a list which is currently called as the Red List of Threatened Species to identify any potential species which could be threatened to total obliteration. There are currently 9 groups which are:

  • Extinct (EX) - Any species which has been obliterated totally
  • Extinct In The Wild (EW) - Only lives in conservation. There are no population exist in the wild
  • Critically Endangered (CR) - Any species which have an extremely high probability to become extinct in the wild
  • Endangered (EN) - Any species which have a high probability to become extinct in the wild
  • Vulnerable (VU) - Any species which have a high probability to become endangered in the wild
  • Nearly Threatened - Any species which have a high probability to become endangered in the future
  • Least Concern (LC) - Lower risk of endangerment
  • Data Deficient (DD) - There are no sufficient data to make a conclusion
  • Not Evaluated (NE)

References and further reading materials


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Sorry about your loss chloroform. I hope things get better.
A great deal of resources have to be conserved to prevent extinction. i wrote an assignment on something related to this in secondary school. It was interesting.

Indeed it was. Some people were ignorant. It is true knowledge is power, but it's going to be wasted if we keep on ignoring the fact that this world is dying because of our activities.

In the end it awaits us all even the universe itself.
The question is in what kind of environment do we want to live in until then. I'm sure most of us will say the most diverse it can be. But we all contribute to its extinction directly or indirectly.
Those that we have the least respect for are the ones who are maintaining the world the most diverse and we call them primitive people.

That was an insightful comment. Yes, you are right. Most of our action doesn't reflect with what we expect from the environment. We want to live in a healthy environment, yet we contribute to pollution. We have the tendency to expect something without returning anything back to the environment. In this case, it almost always contribute to indirect extinction of species. Logging, deforestation. Both of them are some of the major contributing activities to extinction. Thank you for your feedback.

De-extinction is an interesting topic related to this, that maybe you'll want to read up on or visit in a future post, if you're not already aware of it.


Sorry to hear about your recent losses.

Thank you @alexander.alexis. De-extinction sounds interesting. I will be doing some reading later on that topic.

The only thing mankind can conserve is their large ego imho..

My condoleances for your loss.

Thank you. I hope you enjoy this article.

@chloroform, I wish you all the best in the nearest future. I'm really sorry for your loss. I hope to hear soon that you are back to being you.

By the way, nice article. However, I will like to ask a question.

Aside keeping in Parks and Laws against animal killing, what are other measures to prevent extinction?

Well, its all come down to 3 important components:

  • Making lifestyle change
  • Give some of your quality time to contribute to nature
  • Education

I will explain each and every part of the method on my next article. Stay tuned.

Oh, interesting. I will keep close tabs.

Hi @chloroform accept my sympathy once again.This post is completely unique.I think strong legislation should be put in place by government of different countries to ban poaching.Human activities over the past centuries have made alot of both plant and animal species to go into Oblivion.This post should gear us all again to protect some of this animals under threat of extinction again.

Thank you for your feedback. Indeed, human's activities have caused a rapid deterioration of species. Education is essential to instil awareness among the general public so that appropriate measure will not only be taken by the government but every single people.

This is awful that species are going towards extination but conservation steps are only way to prevent their further exploitation..

Practically yes, but education is the most important part. It's imperative especially for all of the leaders out there to know that this world is dying as a consequence of human's activity. They need to do something in order to save it from something even worse.

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Even though conservation has been thought as entirely biological, some of the cause can be traced back to the negative consequences brought by human activities.

As you rightly said conservation traced back to human acitivities, this why there is a need for proper education of man especially those who hunt for animals. adequate education willl help reduce extinction.

Yes, @ugonma. You're right. Education is one of the components to instil awareness among people.

Maybe we could try to develop in-vitro food or at least switch to grasshopper meat commercially. Stop hunting animals for their skins or horns.
There are different levels of conservation and there are many that don't do any conservation.
I think that through education and the change of mentality we can get there. Make more people aware of these things and slowly work towards more measures.
Prove that we are the better species not only by eating or destroying the others.

Steve Cutts had a clip ( judging by your profile mask you will like it or already know it)

Thank you for your feedback and nice video. I didn't know that a piano was made from an elephant. Lol. People are easily blinded by money. The quality of a product seems to outweigh the price that nature would pay to produce, said, product. That's how poaching activities became prevalent. Crocodile skins, leopard skins and any other animal's appendages can be sold at 1000 USD plus. We are an impatient creature. We want to taste a quick benefit of money rather than a long-term benefit of conserving the nature. It's a sad fact but true.

I think that we also need an educational system to back us up.
How else should people know about this if we are not making our voices heard. The educational systems in the present are lagging and poorly tend for this kind of community education.
So everyone is on his own, only a few inquisitive people realize this and try to change mentalities.
I think that we must contribute to the education in general, change it from the roots. I have written about such a complementary educational system before, I will write again!

Yeah, you're right. Education is of utmost importance. Can't wait to read your post regarding the topic.