Links Between Ecosystems and Human Activities

_Elsa_

‘We’ve managed to control fire, practice agriculture, and build transportation vehicles. We’ve built factories, dams, solar panels and we’re constantly finding new ways of exploring space. Still, the human race’s thirst to use, modify and transform natural ecosystems seems endless. For instance, when we transform a plain to grow cereal fields, we’re significantly modifying that local ecosystem. Sometimes, we even end up completely changing it from its original foundations.

Today, human activities have such an impact on ecosystems that we now speak of the Anthropocene timeline. This is a period that defines the significant human impact of human activities on the Earth’s atmospheric, biospheric, geologic and hydrologic systems. This period in time also considers changes happening due to climate change events, which is also mainly caused by human activities. We can see all these changes everywhere. When trees are taken down in the Amazonian forest, the ecosystems change as species struggle to survive and the local humidity and the climate both change. As well, building a dam also changes the distribution of water and affects the species living along the river’s course. 

An example often used about how human activities affect ecosystems is the US Yellowstone National Park. Here, as in other national parks, the U.S. Biological Survey decided to kill wolfs and other species as a predator control measure. The problem was that the disappearance of the wolf population affected all the ecosystem in the long run, even changing the course of the local river. The wolf was later reintroduced in the Park, around 70 years later, in an attempt to restore the balance of the ecosystem. Check out the whole story on this video.’ (Source)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysa5OBhXz-Q

Let’s continue - Why Is Preserving Ecosystems Important?

Start at the beginning - What is an ecosystem?