Coming Soon: The Biggest Biodiversity Issues of 2024

In 2024, many significant issues are expected to have a major impact on biodiversity worldwide. In this article, we will detail some of these issues and discuss their potential effects on the environment and biodiversity.

Hydrogen: Opportunity or Challenge?

Hydrogen is increasingly seen as a viable alternative to traditional fuels in an effort to mitigate climate change. However, the impact of this alternative energy source depends on how hydrogen is produced. Producing hydrogen from natural gas continues to rely on fossil fuels that contribute to climate change. Additionally, generating hydrogen using freshwater, seawater, or tapping into natural aquifers could potentially destroy or disrupt natural habitats. If hydrogen production, distribution, and deployment systems are not carefully designed, they could exacerbate greenhouse gas emissions. Special efforts will be needed to ensure that the benefits outweigh the harms in increasing the use of this hybrid climate solution.

Ammonia: A Dilemma

Ammonia is a key component in agricultural fertilizers. However, producing ammonia requires massive amounts of energy – which currently relies heavily on fossil fuels – for its production. A new technique involving spraying tiny droplets of water onto a magnetic grid holds promise in reducing ammonia production costs and carbon footprint, thus mitigating climate change. However, it also poses potential threats. For instance, cheaper ammonia production with lower carbon emissions could lead to increased fertilizer use and thus elevate the threats of air and water pollution. Additionally, because fertilizers boost the ability of soil microbes to produce nitrous oxide, a potent greenhouse gas, the net climate benefit may be much less than initially expected.

Microbial Foods

The search for environmentally friendly food sources has turned to microorganisms – resulting in significant implications for reducing biodiversity threats from land conversion, overfishing, nutrient pollution, and climate change. Researchers have developed methods to cultivate bacteria using hydrogen, nitrogen, and carbon dioxide. The resulting product – already approved for human consumption in Singapore – is relatively tasteless and easy to use in a variety of manufactured materials to boost protein content. If chemical inputs are produced using renewable energy, the product could have a much lower climate impact and overall environmental footprint compared to traditional meat, dairy, and other dietary protein sources.

Crops in the Dark

The process by which plants use sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide to produce food for themselves and other organisms is remarkably astonishing yet surprisingly inefficient. Recently, researchers have developed an alternative process that uses electricity, water, and carbon dioxide to produce acetate, which can substitute for glucose produced via photosynthesis to stimulate plant growth. This biochemical process could enhance the productivity of crops grown in artificial environments – and in some cases, eliminate the need for light altogether. If the energy input to the system is derived from renewable sources, the result could be a significantly higher and more environmentally friendly productivity of food production indoors, contributing to biodiversity conservation by reducing the need to convert natural sites into agricultural lands.

Rock Dust

Among the various strategies being considered to mitigate the threat of climate change is the application of rock dust capable of absorbing carbon on agricultural lands. Evidence that this practice can also enhance crop yields before the other consequences, both positive and negative, become clear could accelerate its adoption. Potential additional benefits could include increased presence of beneficial soil microorganisms, reduced nutrient threats to freshwater, and lower acidity in soil and seawater. Possible negative consequences might include increased sediment flow into surface waters, exacerbation of heavy metal pollution, harm to soil-dwelling organisms, and encouragement of increased mining. Supply, demonstration of benefits, and the presence of governmental incentives or penalties will play a role in how widely this innovation is adopted.

Disappearance

Earthworms

Earthworms play a vital role in many ecosystems – including agricultural lands – by recycling dead plant material, releasing nutrients, and improving soil quality. Although they do their work silently beneath the surface, a closer look suggests that it is time to pay greater attention to them. A recent study in the United Kingdom found that earthworm numbers have declined by a third or more over the past quarter-century, possibly due to increased pesticide use. If this trend continues elsewhere – and if no action is taken to mitigate it – it could have enormous negative implications for ecosystem health and the planet’s ability to feed its hungry human inhabitants.

Listening to the Soil

What does healthy soil look like? Traditional strategies for assessing soil health and what is needed to improve it require digging into the ground with craftsmanship – a time-consuming and costly endeavor. Emerging technologies make it possible to hear the condition of the soil beneath the surface using acoustic sensing techniques to locate and monitor the movement of underground invertebrates as they go about their daily activities. Known as soil acoustic environment, this non-invasive method can make it easier not only to characterize soil health but also to track and enhance the recovery of previously degraded soils, boosting their capacity to be the craftsmanship foundation of healthy, diverse ecological habitats. Efforts have been proposed to make the technology user-friendly enough for citizen scientists and to develop strategies to integrate it with other environmental monitoring methods.

Smoke and Climate

The amount of smoke in the atmosphere is likely to increase in the future, thanks to the rising frequency and intensity of wildfires. It has become clear that smoke in the air can have serious effects on terrestrial climate. Particulate matter emitted from deliberate burning (for example, to clear land or cook food) and other fires can disrupt natural climate cycles and alter how temperature and pressure are distributed in the atmosphere by blocking sunlight and redistributing moisture in the air. Plants, animals, other organisms, and entire ecosystems have evolved to adapt to existing climate cycles. Large-scale changes could easily shift the balance of nature, with certainly detrimental consequences for biodiversity overall – and for humanity, which relies on healthy ecosystems for our well-being.

DNA Machine

Recent advancements in genetic research have made it relatively possible to create custom strands of DNA, and further work could lead to the ability to use a printing device to create long strands of genetic material encoding desired traits, which could then be inserted into living organisms. The result is a Pandora’s box of potential positive and negative impacts on biodiversity. On the positive side, the technology could be applied to reduce the need for land conversion for agriculture, decrease the use of environmentally harmful fertilizers and pesticides, increase the resilience of living organisms to environmental changes, and provide new ways to combat pests. At the same time, careless or malicious use of the technology could lead to changes in existing organisms that might outcompete their unmodified counterparts and disrupt ecosystems. Endless possibilities could spur international efforts to regulate the application.

Toxicity Prediction

Historically, humans discovered whether a particular chemical was harmful to living organisms and ecosystems by using it and then monitoring the outcomes. Thankfully, a new approach is emerging. Scientists are exploring the use of currently available information about how different types of chemicals behave in the environment and living organisms, even at the molecular level, to predict whether newly manufactured compounds might have unintended adverse consequences. Known as “pathways of harmful outcomes,” this approach could see rapid improvements with the help of machine learning, deep learning, and artificial intelligence. The ability to identify materials in this way could make it easier to pinpoint those that provide benefits, such as increased food production, with minimal harm.

Warning

From the Bird Building

Every fall, billions of birds representing over 100 species fly south from Europe on a route that branches over the Red Sea. A residential building rises covering an area of 34 square kilometers and reaching a height of 500 meters (1600 feet) at the northern end of the Red Sea as part of the development of Neom City in Saudi Arabia. The giant building, which is covered with a reflective surface and may contain wind power stations, could become a trap for the numerous migrating birds known to use this migratory route. With no existing environmental assessment to identify or provide a basis for plans to mitigate the threat, scientists are concerned that there could be a massive bird slaughter in the skyscraper, disrupting the ecological balance as the number of migrating birds changes and affecting the food web on both ends of the migratory path.

Sea Rabbit Die-Off

Sea rabbits play a crucial role in maintaining the health of coral reefs by grazing on algae that can overwhelm the ecosystem. So when mass die-offs of sea rabbits occurred in the Caribbean and Mediterranean in 2022 and appeared to be spreading to the Red Sea, scientists realized it posed a problem for underwater marine systems. Although the cause of the die-offs in Europe remains unclear, researchers have managed to blame an infectious microbe similar to one seen in the Western Caribbean. If a similar microbe is found to be the cause in the Mediterranean, it could signal a shift in environmental conditions favoring the growth of such microbes in other marine environments. These cascading effects could have devastating ripple effects, as this class of pathogens is known to infect fish, corals, crabs, and other marine creatures.

Carbon Storage in the Ocean

Is there too much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere? Call the ocean! The seven oceans cover nearly three-quarters of the Earth’s surface and are known for their ability to absorb heat-trapping carbon dioxide emitted from human activity into the atmosphere. Proposed active strategies to enhance the oceans’ capacity to absorb carbon dioxide include adding fertilizers to seawater, cultivating kelp and then storing it, raising ocean water pH, and actively injecting carbon dioxide into subsurface rocks. While all this sounds good, the horizontal survey authors write that proponents should consider several things when making decisions about whether to implement them and how to do so. First, these strategies have not been extensively tested, so no one really knows how effective they are at carbon storage. Second, there are plenty of possibilities for unintended negative impacts on biodiversity and community.

Problems in the Dark Zone?

The dark zone of the ocean or “twilight zone,” which extends from 200 to 1000 meters (700 to 3000 feet) below the surface, is home to rich assemblages of fish and other marine organisms. These creatures, in turn, provide abundant organic material to the deep ocean by spreading feces and carcasses towards the seafloor, nourishing deep-sea marine creatures in the process. Not only that, but some of this material is buried in the sediment, effectively trapping the heat-trapping carbon from the atmosphere in the process. If the sinking organic material comes in large chunks, it sinks quickly and tends to store carbon for much longer compared to smaller pieces. The challenge? As increasing amounts of
Source: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/coming-soon-the-biggest-biodiversity-issues-of-2024/