Tropical Desert: 1. If water is not supplied in enough abundance to flow off the land and carry away salts then those salts will build up, leading to salinization of the soil, and its eventual abandonment as salt levels become too high to support plants. 2. Because the grazing animals are often placed on the land for a short time, or because their food and water may be supplemented, grazing animals are often placed in deserts at far greater frequencies than the land would normally support. The high level of grazing can destroy or alter native plant communities, and the grazing animals themselves can trample and kill an assortment of desert plants and animals.
Tropical Grassland: 1. Development of urban areas is increasingly cutting into grassland habitat. 2. Continued global warming could turn current marginal grasslands into deserts as rainfall patterns change.
Tropical Rainforest: 1. Many of the fastest-growing human populations are located in the tropics, and as they clear land for sustenance farming there is a direct impact on the rainforest. 2. Logging is also a threat; many of the tropical trees are prized for their lumber (and some are just ground up to make toilet paper).
Temperate Desert: 1. Vehicles disrupt the desert pavement and varnish, leaving the soil underneath open to wind erosion. 2. Global warming is also a potential threat; it's hard to imagine that a slightly warmer desert would be any worse than some of the hot deserts now. However, even small changes in temperature or precipitation may have extensive impacts on desert communities. Temperate Grassland: 1. Sustained heavy grazing by domestick stock, like sheep, and feral animals, like rabbits, leads to the loss of many plant and animal species; and soil compaction by the former. 2. Also, they have all been over-exploited by people through the persuits of agricultural production and infrastructure development. Temperate Forest: 1. The burning of fossil fuels releases sulfur and nitrogen into the atmosphere. Transported by the wind this can fall to earth as dry deposits or combine with water to form “acid rain”. 2. Fires started by people consume an average of one per cent of the existing Mediterranean forest every year.
Temperate Rainforest: 1. With forests elsewhere already cut, there is tremendous pressure to log in temperate rainforests. Thus, timber cutting is the number one threat to these forests. 2. A lot of criticism is leveled at 3rd world countries who allow their forests to be logged without regulation; Canada, a 1rts world country has also come under criticism for this.
Tundra: 1. There are many natural resources located in or under the tundra such as natural gas and oil. People drill for these resources which can disturb or pose a threat to the wildlife. 2. Also, the overpopulation of Canadian geese pose a threat to the balance of the tundra.
Taiga: 1. The human threats to taiga are things like pollution caused by passing coal and oil powered boats, expansion of cities and towns and populations, oil spills caused by tankers hitting icebergs or poorly maintained engines and storage containers. 2. Another threat is mines and lumber mills in order to get lumber you need to chop down trees in massive amounts due to the consuming rate of lumber and paper.
Chaparral: 1. Development of this natural area happens to be the biggest threat the Chaparral. 2. Another big threat to the chaparral biome is pollution, especially in the California area.
Salt Water: 1. If a large ship spills oil, animals, land, and water are all affected by this spill. 2. Also, pollution is another factor when talking about human influences and concerns to the marine biome.
Fresh Water: 1. The creation of dams and water-diversion systems blocks migration routes for fish and disrupts habitats 2. Also, runoff from agricultural and urban areas hurts water quality. Estuary: 1. The main threat to estuaries is urban and agricultural development. 2. Also, modern methods that involving diking, damming and filling-in estuaries to create farmland severely affect the ecological function of the land.