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Animal agriculture worldwide encompasses 83% of farmland (but only accounts for 18% of the global calorie intake), and the direct consumption of animals as well as over-harvesting them is causing environmental degradation through habitat alteration, biodiversity loss, climate change, pollution, and trophic interactions. [176]
The observed adverse impacts on livestock production include increased heat stress in all but the coldest nations. [6] [7] This causes both mass animal mortality during heatwaves, and the sublethal impacts, such as lower quantity of quality of products like milk, greater vulnerability to conditions like lameness or even impaired reproduction. [3]
Management techniques range from animal management and housing to the spread of pesticides and fertilizers in global agricultural practices, which can have major environmental impacts. Bad management practices include poorly managed animal feeding operations, overgrazing , plowing, fertilizer, and improper, excessive, or badly timed use of ...
The unintended consequences of pesticides is one of the main drivers of the negative impact of modern industrial agriculture on the environment. Pesticides, because they are toxic chemicals meant to kill pest species , can affect non-target species , such as plants , animals and humans.
This trade can be devastating to both humans and animals. It has the capacity to spread zoonotic diseases to humans, as well as contribute to local extinction. The pathogens to humans may be spread through small animal vectors like ticks, or through ingestion of food and water.
[171]: 62 The physical environment is external to the level of biological organization under investigation, including abiotic factors such as temperature, radiation, light, chemistry, climate and geology. The biotic environment includes genes, cells, organisms, members of the same species (conspecifics) and other species that share a habitat. [172]
Jack mackerel caught by a Chilean purse seiner Fishing down the food web. Overfishing is the removal of a species of fish (i.e. fishing) from a body of water at a rate greater than that the species can replenish its population naturally (i.e. the overexploitation of the fishery's existing fish stock), resulting in the species becoming increasingly underpopulated in that area.
The natural environment, commonly referred to simply as the environment, is all living and non-living things that occur naturally on Earth or some part of it (e.g. the natural environment in a country).