Environmental Factors That Influence Biodiversity

Species are not uniformly distributed over Earth’s surface; diversity varies greatly from place to place. What lives where depends on a number of interrelated factors. Factors  are: Climate, geologic features, soil type, topographic characteristics (slope, direction of slope, elevation, etc), vegetation, and animals. These factors influence the number and types of plants. The plants in turn influence the soils and the number and types of animals. If environmental conditions were constant over time and space, the existing dominant species would become more dominant. They would increase at the expense of rarer species, following the competitive exclusion principle. But a habitat that includes a variety of local environments is likely to offer a refuge to rarer species, thus leading to greater diversity. The more diverse habitat allows more niches, and more species persist. Also, evolution helps increase the number of species, hence biodiversity to a great extent.

The number of species also varies over time as well as space.

Factors that tend to decrease biodiversity:

1. Environmental stress
2. Extreme environments (conditions near to the limit of what living things can withstand)
3. A severe limitation in the supply of an essential resource
4. Extreme amounts of disturbance
5. Recent introduction of exotic species
6. Geographic isolation.

Of course, people also affect diversity. In general, urbanization, industrialization, and agriculture decrease diversity, reducing the number of habitats and by simplifying habitats.