TY  - JOUR
T1  - The trashing of treasure: global biodiversity needs intensive care
AU  - Sullivan, Gregory Thomas
AU  - Ozman-sullivan, Sebahat K.
PY  - 2025
DA  - January
Y2  - 2025
DO  - 10.47121/acarolstud.1621160
JF  - Acarological Studies
JO  - Acarol. Stud.
PB  - Salih DOĞAN
WT  - DergiPark
SN  - 2667-5684
SP  - 1
EP  - 4
VL  - 7
IS  - 1
LA  - en
AB  - Continuing population declines and extinctions across the earth’s biodiversity spectrum further undermine global ecological functioning and the security of human society. A comprehensive summary of the soon to be released Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) Nexus Assessment report was published in December 2024. It stated that the current environmental, social and economic crises, reflected in mounting biodiversity loss, global climate change, growing water and food insecurity and risks to human health, are inseparable. It also warned that biodiversity levels have fallen between 2% and 6% per decade for the last 30 to 50 years. The level of harm being inflicted on nature is chilling for human society given that the report also stated that ~$58 trillion of global economic activity in 2023 was in sectors moderately to highly nature dependent. Setting aside the strong moral arguments for biodiversity conservation, this situation points to a mounting economic disaster. On a positive note, the report summary did list a suite of proposals for slowing this alarming level of biodiversity loss. However, separate from the IPBES Nexus report, factors that need to be addressed include the expectation of continuous economic growth, extreme concentration of global wealth and power; economic materialism; corporate tax avoidance; public and private sector corruption; the non-incorporation of environmental costs in generating Gross Domestic Product; and the flooding of the internet with misinformation, including climate change denial.
KW  - Ecosystem collapse
KW  - Red List of Threatened Species
KW  - Greenland ice cap
KW  - poverty
KW  - renewable energy
KW  - invertebrate extinctions
KW  - mite
CR  - Anonymous. 2024. Media release: IPBES Nexus Assessment. Available from https://www.ipbes.net/node/85582 (Last accessed: 20 December 2024).
CR  - Anonymous. 2025a. Global climate highlights 2024. Available from https://climate.copernicus.eu/global-climate-highlights-2024 (Last accessed: 18 January 2025).
CR  - Anonymous. 2025b. Billionaire wealth surges by $2 trillion in 2024, three times faster than the year before, while the number of people living in poverty has barely changed since 1990. Available from https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/billionaire-wealth-surges-2-trillion-2024-three-times-faster-year-while-number (Last accessed: 21 January 2025).
CR  - Boyle, M.J.W., Sharp, A.C., Barclay, M.V., Chung, A.Y.C., Ewers, R.M., de Rougemont, G., Bonebrake, T.C., Kitching, R.L., Stork, N.E. and Ashton, L.A. 2024. Tropical beetles more sensitive to impacts are less likely to be known to science. Current Biology, 34 (16): 770-771.
doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2024.06.059
CR  - Bradshaw, C.J.A., Ehrlich, P.R., Beattie, A., Ceballos, G., Crist, E. et al. 2021. Underestimating the challenges of avoiding a ghastly future. Frontiers in Conservation Science, 1: 615419.
doi: 10.3389/fcosc.2020.615419
CR  - Cardinale, B.J., Duffy, J.E., Gonzalez, A., Hooper, D.U., Perrings, C. et al. 2012. Biodiversity loss and its impact on humanity. Nature, 486: 59-67.
doi: 10.1038/nature11148
CR  - Carlson, C.J., Burgio, K.R., Dougherty, E.R., Phillips, A.J., Bueno, V.M. et al. 2017. Parasite biodiversity faces extinction and redistribution in a changing climate. Science Advances, 3(9): e1602422.
doi: 10.1126/sciadv.1602422
CR  - Carluccio, A., Capezzuto, F., Maiorano, P., Sion L. and D’Onghia, G. 2025. Cold-water coral ecosystems along the Apulian coasts: Biodiversity and urgency of conservation measures in the Anthropocene. Journal for Nature Conservation, 84: 126785.
doi: 10.1016/j.jnc.2024.126785
CR  - Carrington, D. 2018. What is biodiversity and why does it matter to us? Available from https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/mar/12/what-is-biodiversity-and-why-does-it-matter-to-us (Last accessed: 11 December 2024).
CR  - Carson, R. 1962. Silent spring. Houghton Mifflin, New York, USA, 368 pp.
CR  - Diamond, J.M. 1989. Overview of recent extinctions. In: Conservation for the Twenty-First Century. Western, D. and Pearl, M.C. (Eds). Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK, 37-41.
CR  - Dickman, C.R., Pimm, S.L. and Cardillo, M. 2007. The pathology of biodiversity loss: the practice of conservation. In: Key topics in conservation biology. MacDonald, D. and Service, K. (Eds). Wiley-Blackwell Publishing, Oxford, UK, 1-16.
CR  - Dunn, R.R., Harris, N.C., Colwell, R.K., Koh, L.P. and Sodhi, N.S. 2009. The sixth mass coextinction: are most endangered species parasites and mutualists? Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 276: 3037-3045.
doi: 10.1098/rspb.2009.0413
CR  - Ehrlich, P.R. and Ehrlich, A.H. 1981. Extinction: The causes and consequences of the disappearance of species. Random House, New York, USA, 305 pp.
CR  - Elo, R.A. and Sorvari, J. 2019. The impact of forest clear felling on the oribatid mite fauna inhabiting Formica aquilonia nest mounds. European Journal of Soil Biology, 94: 103101.
doi: 10.1016/j.ejsobi.2019.103101
CR  - Harvey, J.A., Tougeron, K., Gols, R., Heinen, R., Abarca, M., Abram, P.K., Basset, Y. et al. 2023. Scientists’ warning on climate change and insects. Ecological Monographs, 93 (1): e1553.
doi: 10.1002/ecm.1553
CR  - Kehoe, R., Frago, E. and Sanders, D. 2021. Cascading extinctions as a hidden driver of insect decline. Ecological Entomology, 46 (4): 743-756.
doi: 10.1111/een.12985
CR  - McGuire, B. and Hallam, R. 2025. Scientists prize neutrality – that doesn’t cut it anymore. In 2025, they must fully back the climate movement. Available from https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jan/09/planet-dying-climate-crisis-emergency-scientists (Last accessed: 12 January 2025).
CR  - Napierała, A., Ksiazkiewicz-Parulska, Z. and Błoszyk, J. 2018. A Red List of mites from the suborder Uropodina (Acari: Parasitiformes) in Poland. Experimental and Applied Acarology, 75: 467-490.
doi: 10.1007/s10493-018-0284-5
CR  - OECD. 2019. Biodiversity: Finance and the economic and business case for action. OECD Publishing, Paris, France, 121 pp.
doi: 10.1787/a3147942-en
CR  - Ozman-Sullivan, S.K. and Sullivan, G.T. 2023. Coextinction is magnifying the current extinction crisis, as illustrated by the eriophyoid mites and their host plants. Acarologia, 63 (1): 169-179.
doi: 10.24349/vktm-dk8m
CR  - Ozman-Sullivan, S.K., Sullivan, G.T., Cakir, S., Bas, H., Saglam, D., Doker, I. and Tixier, M.-S. 2024. Phytoseiid mites: trees, ecology and conservation. Diversity, 16: 542.
doi: 10.3390/d16090542
CR  - Pimm, S.L. and Raven, P. 2000. Extinction by numbers. Nature, 40: 843-845.
doi: 10.1038/35002708
CR  - Raven, P.H. and Wagner, D.L. 2021. Agricultural intensification and climate change are rapidly decreasing insect biodiversity. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 118 (2): e2002548117.
doi: 10.1073/pnas.2002548117
CR  - Ripple, W.J., Wolf, C., Newsome, T.M., Galetti, M., Alamgir, M. et al. 2017. World scientists’ warning to humanity: a second notice. BioScience, 67 (12): 1026-1028.
doi: 10.1093/biosci/bix125
CR  - Seeman, O.D. 2022. Mite conservation: which species should we care about – and should we care at all? In: Acarological frontiers: Proceedings of the XVI International Congress of Acarology (1-5 December 2022, Auckland, New Zealand). Zhang, Z.-Q., Fan, Q.-H., Heath, A.C.G. and Minor, M.A. (Eds). Magnolia Press, Auckland, New Zealand, 328 pp. Zoosymposia, 22: 094-094.
doi: 10.11646/zoosymposia.22.1.52
CR  - Stehfest, E., Bouwman, L., van Vuuren, D. P., den Elzen, M.G.J., Eickhout, B. and Kabat, P. 2009. Climate benefits of changing diet. Climate Change, 95: 83-102.
doi: 10.1007/s10584-008-9534-6
CR  - Stork, N.E. and Lyal, C.H.C. 1993. Extinction or ‘co-extinction’ rates? Nature, 366: 307.
doi: 10.1038/366307a0
CR  - Sullivan, G.T. and Ozman-Sullivan, S.K. 2021. Alarming evidence of widespread mite extinctions in the shadows of plant, insect and vertebrate extinctions. Austral Ecology, 46 (1): 163-176.
doi: 10.1111/aec.12932
CR  - Sullivan, G.T. and Ozman-Sullivan, S.K. 2022. Global mite diversity is in crisis: what can we do about it? In: Acarological frontiers: Proceedings of the XVI International Congress of Acarology (1-5 December 2022, Auckland, New Zealand). Zhang, Z.-Q., Fan, Q.-H., Heath, A.C.G. and Minor, M.A. (Eds). Magnolia Press, Auckland, New Zealand, 328 pp. Zoosymposia, 22: 89-93.
doi: 10.11646/zoosymposia.22.1.51
CR  - Sullivan, G.T. and Ozman-Sullivan, S.K. 2023. Biyolojik ceşitliliğin korunması ve akarlar. In: Genel akaroloji. Doğan, S. and Ozman-Sullivan, S.K. (Eds). Nobel Akademik Yayıncılık, Ankara, Türkiye, 607-625. [In Turkish]
CR  - Thomas, C.D., Cameron, A., Green, R.E., Bakkenes, M., Beaumont, L.J. et al. 2004. Extinction risk from climate change. Nature, 427: 145-148.
doi: 10.1038/nature02121
CR  - Wilson, E.O. 1985. The biological diversity crisis: Despite unprecedented extinction rates, the extent of biological diversity remains unmeasured. BioScience, 35 (11): 700-706.
doi: 10.2307/1310051
CR  - Winchester, N.N. and Ring, R.A. 1996. Centinelan extinction: extirpation of northern temperate old-growth rainforest arthropod communities. Selbyana, 17 (1): 50-57.
CR  - Woinarski, J.C.Z., Braby, M.F., Gibb, H., Harvey, M.S., Legge, S.M., Marsh, J.R., Moir, M.L., New, T.R., Rix, M.G. and Murphy, B.P. 2024. This is the way the world ends; not with a bang but a whimper: Estimating the number and ongoing rate of extinctions of Australian non-marine invertebrates. Cambridge Prisms: Extinction, 2: e23, 1-11.
doi: 10.1017/ext.2024.26
UR  - https://doi.org/10.47121/acarolstud.1621160
L1  - https://dergipark.org.tr/en/download/article-file/4526336
ER  -