biodiversity loss: Quick Facts

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The Information Architects of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Last updated

Oct. 14, 2026

Facts

Also Known As	loss of biodiversity

Photos and Videos

bleached coral seascape

Diagram illustrating the main drivers of biodiversity loss, with arrows pointing from habitat loss, invasive species, overexploitation, pollution, and climate change toward a section labeled biodiversity loss, alongside influencers such as human population growth and increased consumption.

This infographic compares the relative biomass in gigatons of carbon among major kingdoms of life, showing plants with the greatest biomass, followed by bacteria, fungi, archaea, protists, animals, and viruses. A detailed breakdown highlights that among animals, arthropods and fish have the highest biomass, with much smaller contributions from annelids, mollusks, livestock, humans, wild mammals, wild birds, nematodes, and cnidarians. Simple illustrations represent each group.

World map highlighting Earth's terrestrial biodiversity hot spots in red, showing regions with exceptionally high levels of species richness and endemism. These hot spots are distributed across parts of Central and South America, the Caribbean, Mediterranean basin, Africa, Madagascar, South and Southeast Asia, and islands in the Pacific and Indian Oceans, as well as select areas in North America, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand.

A river flows beside a barren area scattered with tree stumps, showing deforestation or drought effects; a dense forest stands in the background.

A bee perched on a purple flower with a yellow center.

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Monarch butterfly perched on a plant with purple flowers.

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Topics

Climate change endangered species environmental change habitat loss Deforestation Ecocide pollution conservation ecological footprint sustainability Carbon footprint hot spot species abundance species richness