What affects biodiversity

• Low Biodiversity isn’t necessarily cause for concern as the Antarctic have naturally low biodiversity compared to tropical rain forest
• Agriculture

  As we clear natural vegetation, we reduce the size of habitats and the population size of any wild species living in those habitats

  →this reduces the genetic diversity of the species as their population is reduced meaning that the species has less capacity to adapt to changing conditions through evolution it may also leave isolated
• Agriculture 2

  fragmented populations that are too small to survive modern agriculture relies upon monoculture + selective breeding to increase efficiency - selective breeding also reduces genetic diversity because farmers select particular traits such as rapid growth or high protein content

  →concentrating on these characteristics means other characteristics are ignored altogether selective for specific breeds = genetic erosion