Biodiversity Erosion: Issues and Questions

244 Pages·2022·8.235 MB·English

by  Christian Lévêque

Biodiversity Erosion
Biodiversity Erosion

Issues and Questions

Christian Lévêque
First published 2022 in Great Britain and the United States by ISTE Ltd and John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
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Contents
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi
Chapter 1. The Gradual Decline of Biodiversity: What Do We Mean? . . . . 1
1.1. The context of the debate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.2. “Biodiversity”? A vague concept . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.3. The origins of a concept: creationist thinking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.4. Decline: clarifying the meaning of the words . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.5. Are the indicators reliable? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1.6. Protecting what? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
1.7. The evolution of the concept of decline: from a structural to a
functional approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
1.8. Communication or misinformation? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
1.9. At the roots of the sixth extinction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Chapter 2. The Promethean Dream: Taking Stock of Biodiversity . . . . . . 17
2.1. The notion of species is misleading! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2.2. Hidden biodiversity: cryptic or twin species . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
2.3. Species at the service of genes? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
2.4. Species inventory: what do we know? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
2.5. The geographical distribution of biological diversity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
2.6. In summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Chapter 3. What Can We Learn from the Great Extinctions of
the Past? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
3.1. A hundred times over, put your work back together . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
3.2. The great mass extinctions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
3.3. The tree that hides the forest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
vi Biodiversity Erosion
3.4. Evolutionary consequences of extinctions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
3.5. What is known about the post-extinction processes of the past?. . . . . . . . . 35
3.6. In summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Chapter 4. Biodiversity Decline: “The Worst Is Not Certain” . . . . . . . . . 37
4.1. When scientists cross the yellow line! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
4.2. The risk of extinction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
4.2.1. Endemic species . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
4.2.2. Specialist species . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
4.2.3. Ubiquitous or opportunistic species . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
4.3. Vulnerability of species to risks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
4.4. Species extinctions in the plant world . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
4.5. What do we know about species extinctions in animals? . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
4.6. Species extinctions in France . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
4.7. The false trails of globalization: contextualizing erosion! . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
4.8. In summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
Chapter 5. Let’s Talk about the Renewal Rate of Biological Diversity . . . 55
5.1. Extinction debt and speciation credit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
5.2. Speciation processes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
5.3. The speed of appearance of new species . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
5.4. Is speciation more important in tropical environments? . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
5.5. Evolution and the role of chance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
5.6. Is habitat fragmentation a threat to biodiversity? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
5.7. In summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
Chapter 6. Controversies Surrounding the Extinction Rate . . . . . . . . . . 67
6.1. The laborious calculation of the extinction rate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
6.2. The area/species relationship: a highly criticized prospective tool! . . . . . . . 71
6.3. Text commentary on the extinction rate of species according to the
Sagascience website . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
6.4. A debate confused by ideological concerns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
6.5. In summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
Chapter 7. The Hidden Face of Methods for Assessing
Biodiversity Decline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
7.1. Who can be trusted to analyze the data? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
7.2. Questions about the “species” metric . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
7.3. Amalgamation and false leads . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
7.4. Contingency and the problem of changes in scale: global versus local . . . . . 85
7.5. Losers, but also winners? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
Contents vii
7.6. Manipulating figures: communication or hijacking? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
7.7. The health sector taken hostage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
Chapter 8. Biodiversity and the Functioning of Ecosystems: A Multitude
of Preconceived Ideas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
8.1. The black box of ecological functioning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
8.2. The balance of nature is fiction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
8.3. Disruption does not mean disaster . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
8.4. Are all species needed? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
8.5. Deterministic or stochastic ecological systems? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
8.6. The more species there are, the more resilient the ecological system is . . . . . 97
8.7. The threshold effect or the fall of a paradigm! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
8.8. Species substitutions and the functioning of ecological systems . . . . . . . . 99
8.9. In summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
Chapter 9. Species Introductions: For Better or For Worse . . . . . . . . . . 101
9.1. The delicate issue of indigenousness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
9.2. Species introductions: one of the main causes of biodiversity loss? . . . . . . . 104
9.3. Species introductions and ecosystem functioning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
9.4. Why are our trees sick? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
9.5. Can introductions be controlled? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
9.5.1. The case of climate migrants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
9.5.2. Stowaways . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
9.5.3. Voluntary or accidental introductions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
9.5.4. Lack of courtesy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
9.6. Being pragmatic? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
9.7. Strongly divergent opinions among scientists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
9.8. In summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
Chapter 10. Global Warming: A Catastrophe for Biodiversity? . . . . . . . . 117
10.1. Climate uncertainties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
10.2. The lessons of retrospective ecology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
10.3. Likely consequences of reduced precipitation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
10.4. Likely impacts of temperature increase on biodiversity . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
10.5. Rising sea levels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
10.6. Undergoing or going along with change? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
10.7. In summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
Chapter 11. Is Planning Destroying Biodiversity? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
11.1. European nature: a reconstructed nature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
11.2. “Degraded” ecological systems… really? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
viii Biodiversity Erosion
11.3. When you transform, you lose and you win… . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
11.4. Paradox: destroying biodiversity under the pretext of naturalness . . . . . . . 134
11.5. A brief saga of French forests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
11.6. In summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
Chapter 12. The Decline of Insects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
12.1. The decline of insect populations creates the event . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
12.2. Is the apocalypse coming? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
12.3. The difficulty of identifying the causes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
12.4. Speculation on possible causes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
12.4.1. Light pollution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
12.4.2. Pesticides . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
12.4.3. Diseases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
12.4.4. Changes in agricultural practices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
12.5. What is the impact on agriculture? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
12.6. The case of bees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
12.7. The case of butterflies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
12.8. Some remarks on our relationship with insects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
12.9. In summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
Chapter 13. The Decline of Birds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
13.1. The red list of threatened species . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
13.2. The decline of bird populations… as early as the 19th century . . . . . . . . 160
13.3. Monitoring of the STOC program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
13.4. Focus on the farmland bird guild . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
13.4.1. Different trends for different species . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
13.4.2. Disparities between regions are a cause for concern . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
13.4.3. A general decline across Europe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
13.5. The habitat trail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
13.6. Many other causes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
13.7. The role of reserves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
13.8. On what basis can we talk about decline? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
13.9. Let nature take its course? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
13.10. In summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182
Chapter 14. Reasons to be Positive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
14.1. Highly resilient ecological systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
14.1.1. Oil spills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184
14.1.2. Fires. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184
14.1.3. How long does it take for a tropical forest to regenerate? . . . . . . . . . 186
14.1.4. Pollution of continental aquatic systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186
Contents ix
14.2. Recovering populations! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
14.3. Nature conquers the city . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191
14.3.1. Reducing pollution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
14.3.2. “Rewilding” the city? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
14.4. Rehabilitation of “degraded” systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194
14.4.1. Water quarries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194
14.4.2. Slag heaps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
14.5. What is the future for anthropized nature, left to its own devices? . . . . . . . 195
14.6. Let’s talk about the wolf . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
14.7. In summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198
Chapter 15. From Facts to Extrapolations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
15.1. Many inconsistencies and post-truths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
15.2. Going beyond ecocentrism: what kinds of nature do we want? . . . . . . . . 203
15.3. Protected areas and the return of colonialism? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205
15.4. Nature, an inexhaustible source of problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207
15.5. Single-mindedness and anxiety-provoking communication . . . . . . . . . . 208
15.6. The business of biodiversity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235
Introduction
Environmentalists need to take a serious look at themselves and their priorities.
Nature is no longer found only where we expect to find it, in the countryside or
in “pristine” habitats. It increasingly avoids officially protected areas and heads
for the ungrateful lands. Nature does not care about the artificial division
between urban and rural areas, or between native and alien species. If
ecologists are to make the most of the opportunities of the 21st century to
help restore nature, they must put aside their old certainties and abandon
their obsessions with lost causes, discredited theories and
mythical pristine ecosystems.
(Pearce 2015)
The erosion of biodiversity is part of the more general context of the
relationships that the human species has with other species. Our ways of living on
Earth obviously have an impact on biological diversity… how could they not? Like
other species, we depend on the resources we obtain from nature, and it is hard to
imagine doing without them. Our presence on Earth is not without consequences for
other species so the myth of having nature unaffected, which some activist
movements aspire to, is simply incompatible with the presence of humans. There is
no neutral situation because nature is not a kind of la-la land. It is a brutal and cruel
world where the priority is to survive, by any means possible, and to protect oneself
as best as possible from predators. This is how the human species began its long
adventure. And it is still in this context that there are billions of living human beings
who do not know the comfort of life that progress has given us in the West. This
comfort has been acquired by securing our food sources through agriculture and by