An integral part of being a biologist is understanding the interdependence of all species on each other. Yes – I am talking about food webs and how they are linked by feeding relationships. Producers are adapted to make organic molecules from inorganic molecules (photoautotrophs), to make their own respiratory substrates. Consumers feed on producers to get their respiratory substrates and when both producers and consumers die, the decay process is carried out by decomposers. The decomposers are responsible for the recycling of mineral ions in the food web and the conversion of organic molecules back to inorganic and returned to the ecosystem.

What a sad day when we lose a species – forever! The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has announced the extinction of the slender-billed curlew, Numenius tenuirostris. This is the first-ever recoded extinction of a global bird species from mainland Europe, North Africa and West Asia.

Conservation projects were not successful at saving this species. It was a tricky one to protect because it was a migratory bird so occupied many different habitats at different times and needed to safely fly from habitat to habitat as it migrated.

These factors are thought to have contributed to its downfall:

• Hunting by humans
• Drainage of their wetland habitats
• Overgrazing of grasslands that served as their breeding sites
• A lack of research to learn about their distribution and ecology (distribution of species in covered in both AQA and OCR(A) specifications)

What will be the consequences on the other species in their food web? They were predators in peat bogs feeding on small insects, crustaceans and molluscs.

Their extinction also highlights that their habitats are under extreme stress – water contamination, lack of food, changes in nutrient concentrations. Other species are at risk of the slender-billed curlew’s fate if nothing is done to stop the degradation of habitats.

It’s such a shame that we will never see them or hear them sing again! Let this not be the fate of any more species.

Download the article from the Independent page here