HUMAN IMPACT ON ECOSYSTEMS

 Man impacts environments for a number of

reasons:
 Food production – agriculture and wild harvest
 Energy production
 Pollution
 Together these activities stress ecosystems
 Stress leads to a reduction in species diversity
 Populations sizes may increase (lack of interspecific
competition)
HUMAN IMPACT ON ECOSYSTEMS – FOOD
PRODUCTION

We now have more food than ever before

- Improved irrigation and farming methods
- High yield crops
- Fertilizers & pesticides
What Cost?
 EFFECTS OF INTENSIVE FOOD PRODUCTION

 Monoculture
 growing a single species over a large area – trees/ food crops
 Loss of habitat including increase in field size for efficiency
Reduces species diversity
 Loss of nutrients – leaching due to soil erosion
 Invasion of opportunistic weeds
 Intensification of disease/ predation problems
 Loss of soil structure due to inorganic fertilisers leads to topsoil
erosion
 CHEMICALS
 Herbicides (weedkillers, natural/ synthetic)
 Pesticides (insecticides & fungicides natural/synthetic)
 Fertilisers (NPK & organic)
 DIFFICULTIES
 Toxicity (to consumer & non target species)
 Bioaccumulation through food chain (leading to toxicity)
 Resistance requiring stronger chemicals
 Persistence
 Pollution (leaching/ runoff)
 Fertilisers (organic or NPK)
 Eutrophication excessive nutrients into water (deoxygenation)
 Nitrate in water – blue baby syndrome due to nitrite
 Nitrites. Blue baby syndrome can also be caused by nitrates 
in drinking water leading to methemoglobinemia. 
 Nitrates from polluted drinking water form compounds in the body
that change haemoglobin to methemoglobin, decreasing the ability
of blood to carry oxygen.
 In infants, the condition can be fatal. oxidation of haemoglobin)
 Cancer – not certain
 Methemoglobinemia (congenital or acquired) occurs when red
blood cells (RBCs) contain methemoglobin at levels higher than
1%.
 Methemoglobin (met-hemoglobin") is a hemoglobin in the
form of metalloprotein, in which the iron in the heme group is in
the Fe3+ (ferric) state, not the Fe2+(ferrous) of normal
hemoglobin.
  Methemoglobin cannot bind oxygen, which means it cannot
carry oxygen to tissues. It results from the presence of iron in the
ferric (Fe³⁺) form instead of the usual ferrous (Fe²⁺) form.
 This results in a decreased availability of oxygen to the tissues.
Symptoms are proportional to the methemoglobin level and
include skin color changes and blood color changes at levels up
to 15% .
 As levels rise above 15%, neurologic and cardiac symptoms
arise as a consequence of hypoxia. Levels higher than 70% are
Hypoxia: A lower than normal concentration of oxygen in
usually fatal. arterial blood, as opposed to anoxia, a complete lack of blood
oxygen. Hypoxia will occur with any interruption of normal
respiration.
 Pesticides
These can be toxic to man and other species
 DDT/DDE (Dichloro Diphenyl Trichloroethane/ (Dichloro Diphenyldichloro Ethylene)
 It is a synthetic organic compound used as an insecticide.
 Like other chlorinated aromatic hydrocarbons, DDT tends to persist in the environment and become
concentrated in animals at the head of the food chain.
 Its use is now banned in many countries.
  DDE(Dichloro Diphenyl dichloroethylene) and DDD (dichloro diphenyl dichloroethane) are chemicals similar
to DDT that contaminate commercial DDT preparations
 Synthetic oestrogen
 thin egg shell
 altered sex ratio
 Link to breast cancer
 Fall in sperm counts
Herbicides
Kill indiscriminately
 Good & bad weeds killed
 Loss of food/ habitat for variety of animals
 Loss of food web diversity – unstable
 Loss of useful insect etc. species
 Loss of soil improving microbes/ animals
Possibly toxic
INCREASING ENERGY NEEDS
 Energy requirements have increased
 Principally they have been met by polluting fossil fuels
 This has lead to carbon dioxide emissions increasing substantially

Carbon dioxide causes GLOBAL

WARMING
GLOBAL WARMING

 Principally due to carbon dioxide (60%)

 Other gases include
 Methane (20%)
 CFCs (14%)
 Nitrogen Oxides (6%)
 Ozone (upper atmosphere) (8%)
 Carbon dioxide has increased by 31% during industrial
revolution
 Increase due to combustion, deforestation
CLIMATE CHANGE

 Change of 0.6°C over last century

 Projected rise 1.5 ° -4.5 ° C
 Not all due to Carbon Dioxide, sunspot activity
 Solutions
 Reduce fossil fuel combustion
 Switch to alternative fuel sources (renewable)
 WHAT IS CLIMATE
Climate is the aggregated pattern of weather, meaning averages,
extremes, timing, spatial distribution of…
• hot & cold
• cloudy & clear
• humid & dry
• drizzles & downpours
• snowfall, snowpack, & snowmelt
• blizzards, tornadoes, & typhoons
Climate change means altered patterns.
Global average temperature is just one measure of the state of the
global climate as expressed in these patterns.
Small temperature changes  big changes in the patterns.
 Global Warming also causes;
 Coral bleaching
 Loss of photosynthetic algae (zooxanthellae) from commensal
relationship due to 1°C increase in sea temperature
 Disease spread
 Malaria possible in south Britain
 Loss of species’ niches
 e.g. arctic species on cairngorms
Commensalism: A relationship between individuals of two species in which one species obtains food or other benefits from the other without
either harming or benefiting the latter.

Cairngorms:
The Cairngorms are a mountain range in the eastern Highlands of Scotland. The Cairngorms became part of Scotland's second national park on
1 September 2003.
 Food production
needs to double to
meet the needs of an
additional 3 billion
people in the next 30
years

Climate change is projected to decrease

agricultural productivity in the tropics
and sub-tropics for almost any amount
of warming
 POLLUTION FROM COMBUSTION OF FOSSIL
FUELS
 Acid rain (SO2, Nox)
 Other pollutants
 Ozone layer
 CFCs activated by high energy photons
 Chlorine free radicals react with ozone in upper
atmosphere
POLLUTION
 Heavy metals
 Interfere with enzyme action/ biochemical processes
 Result of industrial activity, common at foundry sites/ gas
works
 Can be removed by expensive soil cleaning
 Reeds may be able to concentrate and so remove them in
their tissues
Reed is a common name for several tall, aquatic grass-like plants of wetlands .
Wetland: A wetland is a distinct ecosystem that is inundated by water, either permanently or seasonally, where oxygen-free
processes prevail.
 POLLUTION -

Biotransformation
 Biotransformation is when organisms metabolise chemicals into
different chemicals. Typically this is a detoxification process.
 Sometimes less toxic chemicals are changed into more toxic
chemicals
 e.g. – metallic mercury to very toxic methyl mercury
 Minamata bay, Japan
POLLUTION - BIOMAGNIFICATION
 If a pollutant is not excreted or destroyed by an organism, it will concentrate in
the animal’s body.
 If that animal is subsequently consumed, all of the toxin will pass to the
consumer
 Consequently, the consumer will have a higher concentration of toxin in their
body.
 HCB = hexachlorbenzene
Correlation between DDE concentrations in the eggs of Alaskan falcons and hawks and
reduction in the thickness of their eggshells (compared with shells collected prior to 1947).
DDE is a metabolite of DDT. Data from T. J. Cade, et. al., Science 172:955, 1971.

Average Reduction in
Species Location Concentration Shell
of DDE in Eggs (ppm) Thickness
Alaskan tundra (north
Peregrine falcon 889 -21.7%
slope)
Peregrine falcon Central Alaska 673 -16.8%

Peregrine falcon Aleutian Islands 167 -7.5%

Rough-legged Alaskan tundra (north
22.5 -3.3%
hawk slope)
Gyrfalcon Seward Peninsular, Alaska 3.88 0

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