Question

More than 400,000 square miles of tall grass prairie that once covered the United States (95 percent of those original grasslands) have been destroyed. Describe in a brief paragraph why this example of habitat loss is a serious threat to biodiversity. In your answer, give other examples of habitat loss.

Answer 1

If only 5% of the original area of the grasslands habitat remains, this implies that the plants that required that kind of terrain and environment to grow may have decreased by a factor of around 20. Similarly, the animals that lived in those areas will have much more limited populations because of the smaller favorable environment. This has chain effects further along the line, because predators that eat the animals living there will also suffer a lack of a food source. Similar effects will occur in other kinds of habitat loss, for example, filling in wetlands to create more land for human use, or deforestation for urbanization purposes.