All over the world, natural habitats are being fragmented into tiny islands by suburbs, ranches, farms, and roads. If asked to join a science panel to speak to Congress, could you explain how this fragmentation process could lead to extinction? How it could lead to speciation?

Video transcript

Hi everyone. Let's look at our next question. It says one of the main causes of extinction is So let's look at our answer choices. Um Sometimes a little tricky when you have something like one of the main causes, because sometimes it can be tricky to give multiple causes. Uh It can be tricky to distinguish which one is a main cause versus less of the main cause. So in this situation let's look through and see which choice seems like the most correct answer. Choice A says speciation. Well, speciation would not be a cause of extinction. Speciation uh involves a species starting to develop into different strains that gradually diverge from each other and become different enough. They don't interbreed. So that introduces more species. It doesn't cause the extinction of a species. So that would definitely not be a correct answer. So we can go ahead and eliminate a choice. B says habitat loss and habitat loss definitely can lead to extinction. Um as habitat is lost, a species is less and less able to reproduce and replace its population and can lead to its eventual die out. So that's definitely a good candidate for our answer. But I might just sort of market and then check to make sure there isn't another better answer later on choices formation of islands. Well, island formation wouldn't lead to extinction. In fact, it often leads to the formation of new species because uh as populations move to the island and are isolated from other populations, they can diverge in their evolution and form new species. So choice C will definitely not be a cause of extinction. And, finally, choice the gene flow and that refers to the movement of genes from one population to another. And that often gives extra benefit to a species because the added genes give it more diversity and more material to adapt to an environment. So gene flow would also not be causing extinction. So we can definitely say that choice be habitat loss is our answer here. Again, that will lead to a species not being able to reproduce enough to replace itself and eventually becoming extinct. See you in the next video.