"The risk of destruction of the entire system": Russian biologist - about the threat to humanity due to the rapid extinction of species

- Sergey Nikolaevich, in early December, more than 2.5 thousand carcasses of the Caspian seal were found on the coast of the Caspian Sea in Dagestan.

According to the preliminary version, the animals could die from a lack of oxygen caused by the release of methane.

- It is quite possible that the cause of death of the animals this time was methane poisoning.

If we talk about emissions, then this can be either a natural phenomenon or a process partly associated with anthropogenic factors.

For example, the development of oil fields at the bottom of the Caspian Sea can provoke natural gas emissions from the bowels.

Such phenomena threaten almost all representatives of aquatic biota.

It’s just that the mass death of seals is more noticeable, because the bodies of these animals have good buoyancy, rise to the surface of the water and are washed ashore.

And we simply do not see many other dead animals, because their bodies remain at depth.

• Dead seals on the shore of the Caspian Sea

• © Ministry of Natural Resources of the Republic of Dagestan

— For what other reasons is there a massive pestilence among wild animals?

- There are widely known cases of mora (jute) among saigas, which, like the Caspian seal, are also protected species.

The saiga lives in several countries, including Russia.

And periodically these animals are overtaken by the case, when thousands of individuals die out.

Scientists tried to explain this phenomenon by various factors.

It is not ruled out that it may be due to special weather conditions - when, after heavy rainfall, frosts hit sharply, everything is covered with ice, and animals cannot get to the grass.

Moreover, saigas already know how such weather threatens them, and they begin to migrate en masse, not even being afraid of people.

But often jute can be associated with infections, such as pasteurellosis.

- Can the death of animals caused by natural factors lead to the extinction of species?

— Yes, especially when it comes to rare, protected species, like seals or saiga.

Here such cases can play a fatal role.

Each population has a so-called red line of abundance, after crossing which it can no longer reproduce normally.

• saiga

• © Wikimedia Commons

How can a person help?

For example, if we talk about infections that are dangerous for wild species - like, say, the Ebola virus for gorillas, then can animals be vaccinated?

Or feed the animals when they start to starve?

- Such support measures have already been partially developed and are being applied.

Of course, mass vaccination of wild animals is hardly possible, but it is possible to reduce the infection of wild fauna by vaccinating livestock.

The fact is that domestic animals are involved in the transmission of viruses during pandemics among wild populations.

Sometimes they act as an intermediate or final link in the transmission of infection.

So, wild ungulates can easily become infected from horses that graze in the steppe, and so on.

So vaccination of pets helps to break the chains of transmission of pathogens.

— Is it necessary to regulate the number of predatory species, such as wolves, to save ungulates?

- Yes, and here it is important to note that wolves and other canines are also carriers of such a dangerous disease for humans as rabies.

And regulating the number of wolves, foxes, raccoon dogs near settlements, reducing their population density is one of the most effective ways to combat the spread of rabies.

It is also necessary to carry out biotechnical measures in relation to ungulates, which begin to starve in a snowy winter.

They can be fed with hay, twigs, etc. Grass can be reduced in crop fields if ungulate feeders are placed at the approaches to them.

In addition, salt marshes for ungulates, pebbles for birds, etc. can be made. There are many methods in nature management that can be applied, entire textbooks on biotechnical measures have been written about this.

• Gettyimages.ru

- Animal rights activists around the world are now actively opposing the regulation of the number of wolves, bears, including in Russia ...

- This is an example of the excess with the "green" agenda, when it starts to be applied thoughtlessly.

Such animal defenders do not understand that everything in nature should be in balance, deviation from the golden mean can harm both nature and humans.

Of course, attempts to destroy some group of animals completely are absolutely unacceptable - in history there were examples of such human actions in relation to supposedly "harmful" species - the gray crow, the same wolves.

It has long been clear that each species occupies its own ecological niche and plays an important role.

But the opposite strategy, when a person generally ceases to control the number of certain species, it also leads to disastrous results.

In this case, predators, for example, begin to multiply excessively and already harm the population of ungulates.

Yes, and they begin to threaten the person himself - now there are more and more cases of wolves attacks on people in rural areas.

In Western Siberia, there is also an uncontrolled growth of the brown bear population, which creates very high risks for the population.

- There is an opinion that nature is capable of self-regulation, and human intervention only harms, is it so?

— Yes, nature is capable of self-regulation, we just may not like the results of this process.

Because the disappearance of species is a normal natural phenomenon, the main thing is that new ones appear in their place.

And, of course, species were actively dying out even before the emergence of the anthropogenic factor.

Even before the appearance of man on Earth, there were five major waves of extinctions, in some cases the vast majority of species disappeared.

• Chiffchaff

• © Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0 / Hans Hillewaert

Starting from the 17th century, the era of the Great Geographical Discoveries, man began to exert an increasing influence on the biosphere.

There is even a whole list of species that have disappeared precisely because of human activity, but still it is not the only factor in extinctions.

Are species disappearing faster now than in the past?

- If we talk about extinction, then usually a new, more perfect one appears in the place of the disappeared species.

This is how evolutionary development takes place on the planet; normally, this is a positive process.

Now on Earth there are a number of species that are on the verge of natural evolutionary extinction.

For example, the African ostrich - today it has remained one species of the entire formerly numerous detachment.

This suggests that the entire order of ostriches is now in the process of evolutionary extinction, although man is trying to slow down this process by breeding these birds on farms.

But it is already clear that on a global scale, the ostrich is doomed to disappear.

• Gettyimages.ru

- You said that normally, new species should come to the place of extinct species.

Is such speciation observed today?

Yes, I'll give you an example.

In Western Europe and the European part of Russia, a bird has long lived - the chiffchaff.

But a few decades ago, this species began to spread south and east, to Siberia.

When he got to the Tyumen region, the song of these birds changed.

And since males and females find each other in warblers precisely by vocal signals, we can talk about the process of isolating a new species.

The farther to the east, the more the song of these warblers changes.

And in Transbaikalia, for example, a new species of bird is already officially distinguished, which is called the sad warbler, and in the Caucasus, the Caucasian warbler has stood out, respectively.

“Man contributes to the accelerated extinction of some species, but at the same time breeds and spreads others around the planet — domestic animals.

That is, it transforms the biosphere for itself.

How could this be dangerous?

- No wonder V.I.

Vernadsky called man a separate geological force - because he constantly transforms his environment.

Indeed, man has bred many new breeds and varieties that did not exist in nature - plants, birds, mammals and even insects, if we recall the silkworm.

Today, the number or prevalence of such cultural forms is enormous.

However, the species diversity of agricultural land is relatively small - in nature there are many times more species.

Therefore, we can talk about the species impoverishment of the biosphere due to human activities.

And this is indeed a rather dangerous bias in terms of evolutionary processes.

This may end sadly not for nature, because it will quickly find a replacement for us, but for man himself.

Why is species diversity so important?

“This is the key to the sustainability of the entire ecosystem.

Let me give you an analogy - for example, an airplane should have spare communication systems, power supply, etc. If the main system breaks down, then the spare system is activated.

In nature, the balance is also built on the principle of redundancy - if one species suddenly falls out, then its niche is quickly occupied by another.

And as a result, the entire food chain continues to work.

And in a situation where species are rapidly dying out, not having time to be replaced by new ones, there is a risk of destruction of the entire system, the ecological balance.

And above all, it threatens humanity.

- What does it mean?

- Man has long fenced himself off from nature with the help of technology.

However, he himself becomes more and more defenseless before nature, if he suddenly finds himself in natural conditions.

And this carries serious risks.

Such vulnerability has always been inherent in dominant species, and we are no exception in this regard.

Gradually, the dominant species loses plasticity and the ability to adapt to changes in the external environment - because it does not use these abilities for a very long time, and they atrophy.

• Gettyimages.ru

Dinosaurs once dominated animals on earth.

Mammals were then a marginal group, they could afford to leave their shelters only at night, having formed a number of useful adaptations at the level of aromorphoses (for example, warm-bloodedness).

But when conditions changed, the dinosaurs that kept everyone in fear simply died out.

And the vacated niches were occupied by other species, including mammals.

Now, humans are the dominant species on the planet.

And it is not a fact that we will be able to adapt to new conditions if serious changes suddenly occur.