Go Green and Conquer: 2026 Ecology Science Olympiad Practice Challenge!

The term that describes the loss of species due to human activities is "extinction." Extinction occurs when a species no longer exists anywhere on the planet. Human activities such as habitat destruction, pollution, overexploitation of resources, climate change, and the introduction of invasive species significantly accelerate the extinction rates of various species.

Understanding extinction is critical because it highlights the impact of human actions on biodiversity. As species go extinct, ecosystems can become destabilized, which can lead to further loss of biodiversity and affect ecosystem services that humans rely on, such as clean air, water purification, and pollination of crops.

In contrast, natural selection refers to the process by which organisms better adapted to their environment tend to survive and produce more offspring. Ecosystem services refer to the benefits that humans derive from nature, such as food, clean water, and air, while co-evolution describes the process where two or more species influence each other's evolution through reciprocal selective pressures.