Abstract
Biodiversity, a central component of Earth's life support systems, is directly relevant to human societies. We examine the dimensions and nature of the Earth's terrestrial biodiversity and review the scientific facts concerning the rate of loss of biodiversity and the drivers of this loss. The estimate for the total number of species of eukaryotic organisms possible lies in the 5–15 million range, with a best guess of ∼7 million. Species diversity is unevenly distributed; the highest concentrations are in tropical ecosystems. Endemisms are concentrated in a few hotspots, which are in turn seriously threatened by habitat destruction—the most prominent driver of biodiversity loss. For the past 300 years, recorded extinctions for a few groups of organisms reveal rates of extinction at least several hundred times the rate expected on the basis of the geological record. The loss of biodiversity is the only truly irreversible global environmental change the Earth faces today.
Keywords
BiodiversityThreatened speciesHabitat destructionExtinction (optical mineralogy)Global biodiversityEcosystemGeographyHabitatEcologyClimate changeGlobal changeExtinction debtRange (aeronautics)Environmental changeEnvironmental resource managementEnvironmental scienceBiology
Affiliated Institutions
Related Publications
Marine Biodiversity Hotspots and Conservation Priorities for Tropical Reefs
Coral reefs are the most biologically diverse of shallow water marine ecosystems but are being degraded worldwide by human activities and climate warming. Analyses of the geogra...
The Future of Biodiversity
Recent extinction rates are 100 to 1000 times their pre-human levels in well-known, but taxonomically diverse groups from widely different environments. If all species currently...
Freshwater biodiversity conservation: recent progress and future challenges
Freshwater habitats occupy <1% of the Earth's surface, yet are hotspots that support 10% of all known species, and ⅓ of vertebrate species. Fresh waters also are hotspots for...
Deforestation Predicts the Number of Threatened Birds in Insular Southeast Asia
The world’s tropical forests are being cleared rapidly, and ecologists claim this is causing a massive loss of species. This claim has its critics. Can we predict extinctions fr...
Climate change in Australian tropical rainforests: an impending environmental catastrophe
It is now widely accepted that global climate change is affecting many ecosystems around the globe and that its impact is increasing rapidly. Many studies predict that impacts w...
Publication Info
- Year
- 2003
- Type
- article
- Volume
- 28
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 137-167
- Citations
- 1315
- Access
- Closed
External Links
Social Impact
Altmetric
PlumX Metrics
Social media, news, blog, policy document mentions
Citation Metrics
1315
OpenAlex
Cite This
Rodolfo Dirzo,
Peter H. Raven
(2003).
Global State of Biodiversity and Loss.
Annual Review of Environment and Resources
, 28
(1)
, 137-167.
https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.energy.28.050302.105532
Identifiers
- DOI
- 10.1146/annurev.energy.28.050302.105532