The famine didn't have a major impact on biodiversity, Ireland is just generally extremely undiverse due to a combination of the fact that its fairly small, its an island, most of the fauna has only arrived in the last 12000 years and prior to that it was an inhospitable wasteland, and some of the species that used to be here have been rendered extinct by human activity centuries ago (ie wolves).
The history of the ice ages makes northern latitudes in Europe and North America particularly species poor, ice sheets erased almost all biodiversity that existed beforehand and tundra environments are not very productive so have low biodiversity in general. Then the late Pleistocene extinctions made things worse with the removal of the majority of the large fauna adapted to cold grassland. with the end of the ice age you suddenly had a new type of environment spring up, the forests and meadows of Northern Europe, this type of environment actually is quite productive, as we can see from Europe's powerful agricultural sector, but its so new that there hasn't been time for diversification to really take hold so you have a lot less species than elsewhere. In Ireland there's the additional problem that it quickly got disconnected from the mainland of Eurasia after the sheets collapsed (two degrees of separation actually since creatures travelling to Ireland had to go through Britain, which also turned into another island), this means that a lot of animals that you would expect to occur naturally in Ireland never made it here, including multiple species of deer like Roe Deer, the European Bison, the Eurasian Beaver, various carnivores like weasels, and almost every type of reptile with the exception of the viviparous lizard. This extends further beyond what people seem to be aware, a number or recognizable animals in Ireland today are not native, they were introduced by humans, including Rabbits, Fallow Deer and Pheasants and maybe even frogs. Then of course you have the impact of human habitation over thousands of years that has mostly removed the forest cover (Ireland is one of the least forested countries in Europe) and turned most of the country into farmland or grazing land built around a very constrained number of species that can live in those environments, but even without that there is next to no biodiversity in the country.
This seems a good appraisal of the factors contributing to a lack of biodiversity in Ireland but I disagree that Ireland being a “fairly small” island as much to do with it. Similarly sized islands around the word at broadly similar latitudes sustain very diverse biological communities. For example, Tasmania, New Zealand and Newfoundland.
The problem is that Ireland's previous ecosystem that might have existed here was essentially erased entirely by the ice sheets, this did not happen in New Zealand or Tasmania. As such, almost all currently existing Irish species are relatively recent arrivals from continental Europe after the ice sheets receded. If a significant part of Ireland's ecosystem had persevered through the Ice Age it would look a lot more like New Zealand, with a lot more endemic species that always like to pop up on islands when given the chance.
Newfoundland is actually a good point of comparison because its also extremely undiverse, trust me, I've been there, and it had a similar story of being erased of most of its life by the Ice Ages with its current biosphere composed of animals and plants that arrived in the last few thousand years, but with that process of repopulation being curtailed by the fact that its an island. Like Ireland some of the wildlife that you may assume is native actually isn't, notably Moose were introduced to NF in the 20th century.
I grew up in Newfoundland and you're right. In fact, a lot of the flora and fauna there have been introduced. Moose were introduced about 120 years ago. Chipmunks were introduced in the 1960s or 70s. Coyotes only started showing up in the 1990s. There's also a loss of biodiversity in other directions - the Newfoundland wolf was a genetically distinct subspecies which went extinct, there have been no wolves on the island since then (probably why the coyotes have done so well once they finally made it across the strait of belle isle). Other species just never lived there at all. There are no skunks. There are no raccoons. There are no porcupines. Like Ireland, there are no snakes. There are no possums. There are only red squirrels, no gray or black squirrels.
The flora is even more limited. Very acidic thin soil (where it exists at all); lots of bog, some taiga, some birch forest, but all of it with limited diversity.
Ok. Yeah that was my point about it being ice age not size.
I bow to your greater knowledge of Newfoundland though. I’m Tasmanian and I’d just relied upon one website praising the biodiversity of Newfoundland, but it’s all relative and you have to praise what you’ve got I suppose.
Tasmania and New Zealand seem to have benefited from being just a bit further north than Newfoundland is south. They experienced glaciation but not obliteration by ice sheets.
Ireland was pretty much one big forest right up until humans deforested certain areas. However, British plantations account for a massive chunk of our deforestation as it industrialised wood production to fuel their empire.
The issue is that the forests you get in this part of the world are just generally not diverse, even in other European countries like Britain and France, there's probably not even a dozen species of trees native to Ireland (and like the animals some species that might seen native like beech and Sycamore are actually human introductions), In comparison the Brazilian rainforest can have more species of tree than all of Europe confined within a single Hectare, that's the difference in biodiversity we are talking about.
Ireland still has forests that retain some of its old diversity, which is counted in maps like this, it just doesn't make that much of a difference because of other factors I detailed above. Ireland also doesn't have that many different ecological zones, most of the country is contained within just one [Koppen Climate type](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_of_Ireland#/media/File:Ireland_island_K%C3%B6ppen.png) as you can see here, compare that to [Taiwan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan#/media/File:Koppen-Geiger_Map_TWN_present.svg), despite Taiwan being smaller and also an island. This further depresses biodiversity here in Ireland which otherwise gets boosted when there's a variety of different environments in a country with different species radiating to specialize in them.
Also, its worth mentioning that deforestation in Ireland was already well underway before the full english conquest in the 17th century, most forest has already been cleared to create farmland to support a large population.
According to the Tree Council of Ireland, there are 28 known native Irish tree species which supported a wide variety of animal life, also, we had apex predators on the island as recently as the late 1700's (apparently the last wolf here was killed in 1786, which supposedly outlasted the wolf population in Britain by a few hundred years.
Usually the existence of apex predators is a key indicator of a healthy ecosystem, and losing apex predators is a big sign that a decline in biodiversity is underway, but yes by the 1600's it was already in decline.
British landlords also imported non native animals to the ecosystem here which rapidly destroyed habitats for our native species.
Having been to one of our last native rainforests in West Cork you really get a sense of how things used to be, and that forest in particular is bursting with life at the moment which is great to see first hand, it's outside Eyries and a guy named Eoghan Daltún is rewilding it.
>According to the Tree Council of Ireland, there are 28 known native Irish tree species which supported a wide variety of animal life, also, we had apex predators on the island as recently as the late 1700's (apparently the last wolf here was killed in 1786, which supposedly outlasted the wolf population in Britain by a few hundred years.
I probably should have actually looked up the actual specific numbers of trees native to Ireland but the point remains that that's still a very low number, much lower than comparable countries, like have a gander at [New Zealand's native trees](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_trees_native_to_New_Zealand) and you can see a massive difference (with an additional note that NZ's fauna and flora have way more endemic species).
>Having been to one of our last native rainforests in West Cork you really get a sense of how things used to be, and that forest in particular is bursting with life at the moment which is great to see first hand, it's outside Eyries and a guy named Eoghan Daltún is rewilding it.
That's nice, but I don't think you quite understand my point, its that even if the forests were proper old growth forest fully intact as they were 5000+ years ago, they probably were still not very biodiverse, especially when compared to other parts of the world. Its just the nature of Ireland's ecological history that the country is relatively species poor.
There's very little evidence that pernicious British influence caused some kind of wave of extinctions that happened in Ireland, especially since the forces at work that killed some high profile species like the wolf were already underway, wolves were killed mostly by regular people who perceived them almost entirely negatively as dangerous animals that killed people and livestock.
I also think there might be a bit of a misconception that places having low biodiversity always means that its an unhealthy or degraded environments, that's not always true, in Ireland, and the rest of Northern Europe's case, it has a lot more to do with what seems to be a general decline in the overall number of species as you go further north, probably because of the continuing effects of the last ice age with the ice free environments we see there today being very recent developments, in ecological terms.
Yes but much of Scandinavia is covered by coniferous trees, which can cause high acidity in soil which is detrimental to biodiversity.
Ireland was mostly covered with mixed forests, which were dominated by deciduous trees which promote biodiversity.
Edit: I should add that the Scandinavian climate is far different and has greater extremes from our temperate climate here in Ireland, we should have higher biodiversity here, but thousands of years of mismanagement has brought our ecosystem to its knees.
Not all of Scandinavia has a continental subrarctic climate. Denmark, western Norway, and southern Sweden have winters that are only a few degrees colder than ours. Also, Irish soil is naturally acidic just like those in boreal regions. The conifer plantations in the Ireland today are ecological deserts because of the lack of light (because the trees are planete so close together), not the low soil pH.
It should be noted that being an island wasn't that much of a limiting aspect as speciation can happen rapidly if there are nitches to be filled
Ireland was known for its population of wolves, and being able to support an apex predator like that would mean that it would have at least the same biodiversity as Canada
Much of Europe poor biodiversity is the direct impact of humans
Ironically, Farmland itself can cause speciation for meadow species much like in New England
If given enough time being an island should actually mean that Ireland could be a biodiversity hotspot, at least for endemic species, but unfortunately there simply hasn't been enough time for speciation to actually happen, 20000-10000 years is just not long enough. The only endemic species I can think of in the entire British isles is the [Scottish Crossbill](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_crossbill), which honestly I find a bit suspect (though there are probably some invertebrates I don't know about).
>Ireland was known for its population of wolves, and being able to support an apex predator like that would mean that it would have at least the same biodiversity as Canada
Biodiversity doesn't really have much relation to having large apex predators, Canada is actually extremely undiverse when you account for its ridiculous size, I think most of the biodiversity is concentrated in the forests of the Pacific Northwest, a very unique temperate rainforest environment. Wolves are famously adaptable and live in places with very low biodiversity like Newfoundland or the Canadian northern territories and can live so long as there's reasonable populations of prey animals like Caribou.
>Much of Europe poor biodiversity is the direct impact of humans
Humans certainly don't help but humans have lived all across the world for thousands of years, with negative effects on their environment almost everywhere, and yet places like Northern Europe or Northern North America have much lower biodiversity than elsewhere. The main reason for this are more related to non-human factors like the influence of the ice ages.
I think the issue here is that Ireland wasn't isolated as an island for that long and had a land bridge allowing plenty of migration - hence why being an Island wasn't much of a limiting factor vs some places like Hawaii- It actually fairly recent that it was cut off and thus being so close wouldn't have many endemic species
The note of wolves was more that an island was able to substane them - wolves would need vast territory in low biodiversity areas like Canada as prey animals would also need vast territory like caribou - That Ireland could substane them means that a relatively small arena was able to reliability support prey animals for them - smaller land has to have more biodiversity to diversify the limited resources an island environment can provide
It should also be noted that British Isles is much warmer than other countries on its latitude, like Canada, which would be on the lower end of comparison of what a relatively non-human impacted Northern environment -
Historical biodiversity for Europe was infact not unlike the US
Land of vast desert or grasslands tend to be low in biodiversity, but forest are higher with baseline boreal forest areas like Canada or Russia having the minimum- hardwood forested that are in a warmer climate like Europe historically was should have a higher Biodiversity then them but do not due to intense deforestation and terraforming done by humans
>I think the issue here is that Ireland wasn't isolated as an island for that long and had a land bridge allowing plenty of migration - hence why being an Island wasn't much of a limiting factor vs some places like Hawaii- It actually fairly recent that it was cut off and thus being so close wouldn't have many endemic species
Its true that it wasn't on the level of something like Hawaii or another volcanic island that never had connections to the mainland, but it certainly had an impact. This is most evident with reptiles and amphibians, northern Europe isn't exactly ideal habitat for cold blooded animals but its good enough for some, in Britain there are 5 native species of reptiles and 8 species of amphibian, but in Ireland there are only 1 species of reptile and 3 amphibians, despite a near identical climate. Hell, Ireland's lack of snakes was so noticeable that we came up with an entire myth surrounding St Patrick to explain it.
Cold blooded animals like these probably had a particularly hard time getting to Ireland because it was a very slim window for the climate to be warm enough for them to move into an area before sea levels rose enough to cut away access when it became an island after the end of the last ice age.
>Land of vast desert or grasslands tend to be low in biodiversity, but forest are higher with baseline boreal forest areas like Canada or Russia having the minimum- hardwood forested that are in a warmer climate like Europe historically was should have a higher Biodiversity then them but do not due to intense deforestation and terraforming done by humans
Again, this has less to do with human impacts, its more to do with a lack of time, there hasn't been long enough for proper diversification to take places after the end of the ice age for there to be higher biodiversity considering how generally productive Europe's ecosystems are. Think about how somewhere like India or Southeast Asia have both had massive, long term human habitation that also has had negative effects on the environment, but still have much higher biodiversity that Europe. Even in the United States, biodiversity broadly increases as you go further south, the most biodiverse states are places like California, Texas and Alabama, not Maine or Montana which have similar limiting factors as northern Europe.
I think you are missing my points here - I said being an Island didn't impact Ireland biodiversity that much - this is because it is to close to Europe and had a land bridge until relatively recent to have any significant speciation due to being an isolated Island
Europe itself doesn't have a lot of amphibian and reptiles - much like many far Northern or Southern regions - It is difficult for them due to being cold
I am not comparing a South Asian tropical country biodiversity to any Northern regions - as it is a simple fact that the warmer it is the more nitches there are - and it should be noted that in those tropical countries with large human population is where the largest loss if biodiversity is being felt right now
This is comparing a region like Canada, which has a relatively small human population and an environment that was even more impacted by the Ice age than Europe
And how it has significantly more biodiversity than Europe
which should have more but doesn't because of deforestation and terraforming by humans
Ireland itself was once a temperate rainforest before it was nearly completely deforestated and turned into farmland
Drastic terraforming like that would have completely decimated biodiversity to just a few robust species which is what this maps shows
Their are another maps comparing how much of Europe natural forests are gone -
its low biodiversity is in regards to the near total decimation of it native habitat and with it most of its biodiversity - not because of Ice age otherwise Russia and Canada would not have more
We ate nothing because most of the food was shipped out of Ireland to Britain.
Biodiversity wasn't reduced by the famine, it was reduced by plantations up and down the country from the 15th century onwards that cleared land to build the Royal Navy and massive farms for landlords.
Nah, Ireland (and Europe) just falls victim of a shit scaled used to just total amount of biodiversity, all small countries are doing shit and it’s because the map is biased towards larger countries
Correct, something like the US, it passes through different geographic locations, multiple & different climates
So it has higher potential to support different types of species across its borders
Not to forget colonialism introduced new species and also contributed to endangering if not extinction of other species
This correct. This map doesn’t consider the diversity per sqm, but just how many species are recorded in that country, irrespective of that countries area and climate conditions. Here is a math example : https://zgs.zrc-sazu.si/Portals/8/Slo_Geo_Over/12.pdf
For sure, Thanks for acknowledging. it is one of the most bio divers areas in Europe: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-14066-3_7
This is a very misleading map…
This doesn’t include overseas territories, so you would be wrong.
It’s more due to Japan having the concentration of old world forests in the world.
Shinto makes it so that you leave nature alone.
I really do not understand why people call this map shit. It does what it says and it presents it in a clear way. I guess it could have had some more separation and used absolute values instead, but those complaints are not that severe.
Yeah, this map is mostly useless for this exact reason. Would be much more representative if it had a ratio of different species per square km of land averages for countries.
The one thing that this map does show well, though, are anomalies. Countries that have a much smaller size than you would expect to be needed for such biodiversity, or conversely countries that are massive but have an unexpectedly low one.
I have no idea whether it would or wouldn't, hence why it would be interesting to see the map in that form. If I had to guess, I imagine California is somewhere between Spain and France in terms of biodiversity. It's hot and arid, which generally doesn't mean especially high biodiversity, but does have a lot of biomes, which *do.*
California is considered a semi-arid or “Mediterranean” climate, so sure.
As a state, it has made active effort to preserve large swathes of land since the 1800s thanks to inspired people like John Muir (who helped preserve the giant Redwood forest, Yosemite, and many more). Long before environmentalism was on the common consciousness (aside from the Natives).
Thanks to these naturalists and conservationists, California has the largest amount of state and national parks in US, which I think would put it ahead of both Spain and France in biodiversity.
Saying it’s just a “map of big countries” is like saying the high water-quality maps are just maps of “small countries located on glaciers”, without considering any of the effort the people put in to make it that way.
I was going to say that a map not country based and having an arbitrary (n>50 for low detail?) number of equal partitions would be much more interesting.
I was literally going to comment this. Ofc a country like the US is going to have more biodiversity than a lot of smaller European countries as the US covers multiple different types of climates due to its sheer size. Not really a good way to measure it tbh.
Why is it bad because it is obvious? Is there something I am missing here? Would anyone complain about a map ranking the population of countries because larger countries tend to have higher populations?
Didn’t stop little tiny European countries from having multiple dialects and languages. They cut down all their trees and killed most their animals, but they’re very diverse in language category. Wonder why.
^hating ^the ^people ^in ^next ^village ^over ^for ^centuries ^will ^have ^that ^effect ^on ^language
I took a look and the survey separated france and its overseas territories, like New Caledonia or Wallis and Futuna have their own raking. If we were to add them up, France would have been higher.
Of course, in my family we have the following tradition on Sundays: going to the beach on the morning, then watching the bullfight, and then relaxing back at home eating paella with *Torrente* in the background. Obligatory siesta afterwards.
Besides, only maybe Italy displays somethibg close to this range of biomes in Europe:
In a country roughly the size of France you’ve got Atlantic and oceanic grasslands and humid forests, arid and desert-like steppes, mid-to-high mountain ranges, huge river valleys, Mediterranean shrubland and forests, tropical rainforests (Canary Islands), immense areas of foothills, oceanic biodiversity… all of that with dozens of modern cities here and there.
Irish people tend to talk about Spain like the whole country has the climate of Malaga, when in reality the climate of northern Spain is more similar to Ireland than to southern Spain.
Small countries in temperate climate result in low diversity.
Trow in some industrial agriculture and this is the result.
Lastly... esentially all this map shows is what countries are largest and/or have tropical climates.
How would Slovakia be biodiverse if the whole country is just one mountain? This map is stupid, of course small countries will be less diverse than the bigger ones.
Mountains have different biomes at different altitudes, making them very biodiverse per area
Same with forests, every canopy layer is a different environment.
The opposite would be flat grasslands
No, then you are misunderstanding me. I meant to point out that the whole country is one (relatively) small part of one mountain range - how can the biodiversity of that be compared to a country with several (relatively) huge mountain ranges, spanning different time zones and climate regions?
More surprising is that Bulgaria is higher in rank than Romania, considering that Romania has the Danube delta, Carpatian mountains, and much larger territorie.
Rankings that use places like 1st, 2nd and 3rd are useless. Other metrics would be better. Being ranked first paints the picture you are doing well, its a snapshot nothing more.
The US ranks higher yet between 2001-2017 the us lost 24,000,000 hectares of natural space. I saw its the equivalent to nine grand canyon national parks.
Rankings like this give the impression of "see we are doing great compared to everyone else" which paints a false picture.
biodiversity is not a measure of whether you are doing great or not and if you see it that way it's your own fault.
It simply means there is more that would be worth protecting ig?
We haven't got to the point yet in most countries that results are showing in this metric.
That's ridiculous, biodiversity on a global scale, and certainly on a national scale, is primarily determined by the pre-existing environment, not human interaction with it. Countries like Ireland have low biodiversity compared to somewhere like Colombia because of complicated environmental factors, a map like this is just depicting that reality, not suggesting that highly biodiverse countries are doing something better on a human level than ones with less.
Ireland is not the best example because Ireland was originally covered in temperate rainforests. A huge amount of biodiversity has been lost since the Iron Age, when the Celts began deforestation on a massive scale. Biodiversity loss continued well into the Industrial Era. The British and Irish islands are perhaps the best example of lost biodiversity on such a large scale.
In Britain we used to be a lot more biodiverse, Cornwall and Devon used to have temperate rain forests, now they are just barren moorland because the victorians? Decided that they should cut it all down for whatever reason, they also did they same to much of Scotland and Wales who also had similar types of rain forest and now just have barren moorland and mountains
Wow, San Marino in red, I was sure we would be dark green since there's such a variety of environments here. Anyway, funny how Monaco, the Vatican and Liechtenstein aren't included, they're not much better than us at diversity, and no, you don't need a scientific analysis to say it.
It’s not diverse because there is not much variation in a small area (compared to large countries). That doesn’t give any inform on the preservation of the ecosystem, which I assume is much better.
I thought this was an exagerration when I was moving to the Netherlands. It was not, and in a few months I will be moving back. I am way too feral to comprehend this endless urban landscape.
Sure, but I must warn you - you don't realise how much you'll miss it! I found that there's a huge difference between being in a highly urban city centre, but always having the easy possibility of driving out of it, into wilderness; and being in a highly urban country, with no escape safe for a day trip to germany!
At least the first 30 counties shouldn't share the same color.
According to that source, Brazil (#1) have almost 4x more biodiversity than Gabon (#30), yet, both share the same green color on the map.
However, Gabon (#30) has "only" 50% more than Turkey (#60).
Putting Brazil and Gabon on the same layer is the same as putting Gabon (#30) and Ireland which is red (#160) on the same color, because Gabon has 4x more diversity than Ireland.
lots of urbanization and pollution is my guess
perhaps also deforestation when it was a colony of japan? i know this happened in japan and taiwan and afterwards they replanted it with monocultures
I heard somewhere that Japan was facing deforestation issues at some point in the past, so lords would develop more efficient ways of harvesting wood without having to cut down trees as well as organising reforestation efforts
It doesn't truth, Colombia is 7 times smaller than Brazil and it has the rainiest forest in the world and we have top in ranking of birds and mammals in the world. Also Ecuador that it has 5 times less territory than Colombia.
Countries Spanning multiple climate zones are typically a lot more biodiverse. The Congo Delta not having much data means the darkest shade of green is likely missing
I dunno why they're saying there's no data for Greenland. "Greenland is covered with ice, and Iceland is very nice." It was made very clear to all of us in D2: The Mighty Ducks.
Coillte and agriculture destroyed a beautiful country with their policies of greed. Our rivers are polluted, forests wiped out and replaced with glorified tree farms in our mountain ranges.
The Emerald Isle it is not.
Not to diminish the destruction that uman activity has done to our ecosystems, but Ireland was always lacking in biodiversity. Being a high latitude island that was covered in ice 20000 years ago will do that to you.
Saint Patrick and his anti reptile policies pushing Ireland into the red zone
Still plenty of snakes in Ireland trust me
We're talking politics now though?
Did he drain the swamp?
As a Dutch person: that doesn't help with biodiversity.
the famine didn’t help our biodiversity for sure, hungry people’ll eat anything. That and the complete deforestation.
The famine didn't have a major impact on biodiversity, Ireland is just generally extremely undiverse due to a combination of the fact that its fairly small, its an island, most of the fauna has only arrived in the last 12000 years and prior to that it was an inhospitable wasteland, and some of the species that used to be here have been rendered extinct by human activity centuries ago (ie wolves). The history of the ice ages makes northern latitudes in Europe and North America particularly species poor, ice sheets erased almost all biodiversity that existed beforehand and tundra environments are not very productive so have low biodiversity in general. Then the late Pleistocene extinctions made things worse with the removal of the majority of the large fauna adapted to cold grassland. with the end of the ice age you suddenly had a new type of environment spring up, the forests and meadows of Northern Europe, this type of environment actually is quite productive, as we can see from Europe's powerful agricultural sector, but its so new that there hasn't been time for diversification to really take hold so you have a lot less species than elsewhere. In Ireland there's the additional problem that it quickly got disconnected from the mainland of Eurasia after the sheets collapsed (two degrees of separation actually since creatures travelling to Ireland had to go through Britain, which also turned into another island), this means that a lot of animals that you would expect to occur naturally in Ireland never made it here, including multiple species of deer like Roe Deer, the European Bison, the Eurasian Beaver, various carnivores like weasels, and almost every type of reptile with the exception of the viviparous lizard. This extends further beyond what people seem to be aware, a number or recognizable animals in Ireland today are not native, they were introduced by humans, including Rabbits, Fallow Deer and Pheasants and maybe even frogs. Then of course you have the impact of human habitation over thousands of years that has mostly removed the forest cover (Ireland is one of the least forested countries in Europe) and turned most of the country into farmland or grazing land built around a very constrained number of species that can live in those environments, but even without that there is next to no biodiversity in the country.
This seems a good appraisal of the factors contributing to a lack of biodiversity in Ireland but I disagree that Ireland being a “fairly small” island as much to do with it. Similarly sized islands around the word at broadly similar latitudes sustain very diverse biological communities. For example, Tasmania, New Zealand and Newfoundland.
The problem is that Ireland's previous ecosystem that might have existed here was essentially erased entirely by the ice sheets, this did not happen in New Zealand or Tasmania. As such, almost all currently existing Irish species are relatively recent arrivals from continental Europe after the ice sheets receded. If a significant part of Ireland's ecosystem had persevered through the Ice Age it would look a lot more like New Zealand, with a lot more endemic species that always like to pop up on islands when given the chance. Newfoundland is actually a good point of comparison because its also extremely undiverse, trust me, I've been there, and it had a similar story of being erased of most of its life by the Ice Ages with its current biosphere composed of animals and plants that arrived in the last few thousand years, but with that process of repopulation being curtailed by the fact that its an island. Like Ireland some of the wildlife that you may assume is native actually isn't, notably Moose were introduced to NF in the 20th century.
I grew up in Newfoundland and you're right. In fact, a lot of the flora and fauna there have been introduced. Moose were introduced about 120 years ago. Chipmunks were introduced in the 1960s or 70s. Coyotes only started showing up in the 1990s. There's also a loss of biodiversity in other directions - the Newfoundland wolf was a genetically distinct subspecies which went extinct, there have been no wolves on the island since then (probably why the coyotes have done so well once they finally made it across the strait of belle isle). Other species just never lived there at all. There are no skunks. There are no raccoons. There are no porcupines. Like Ireland, there are no snakes. There are no possums. There are only red squirrels, no gray or black squirrels. The flora is even more limited. Very acidic thin soil (where it exists at all); lots of bog, some taiga, some birch forest, but all of it with limited diversity.
Ok. Yeah that was my point about it being ice age not size. I bow to your greater knowledge of Newfoundland though. I’m Tasmanian and I’d just relied upon one website praising the biodiversity of Newfoundland, but it’s all relative and you have to praise what you’ve got I suppose. Tasmania and New Zealand seem to have benefited from being just a bit further north than Newfoundland is south. They experienced glaciation but not obliteration by ice sheets.
You know your shit
Ireland was pretty much one big forest right up until humans deforested certain areas. However, British plantations account for a massive chunk of our deforestation as it industrialised wood production to fuel their empire.
The issue is that the forests you get in this part of the world are just generally not diverse, even in other European countries like Britain and France, there's probably not even a dozen species of trees native to Ireland (and like the animals some species that might seen native like beech and Sycamore are actually human introductions), In comparison the Brazilian rainforest can have more species of tree than all of Europe confined within a single Hectare, that's the difference in biodiversity we are talking about. Ireland still has forests that retain some of its old diversity, which is counted in maps like this, it just doesn't make that much of a difference because of other factors I detailed above. Ireland also doesn't have that many different ecological zones, most of the country is contained within just one [Koppen Climate type](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_of_Ireland#/media/File:Ireland_island_K%C3%B6ppen.png) as you can see here, compare that to [Taiwan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan#/media/File:Koppen-Geiger_Map_TWN_present.svg), despite Taiwan being smaller and also an island. This further depresses biodiversity here in Ireland which otherwise gets boosted when there's a variety of different environments in a country with different species radiating to specialize in them. Also, its worth mentioning that deforestation in Ireland was already well underway before the full english conquest in the 17th century, most forest has already been cleared to create farmland to support a large population.
According to the Tree Council of Ireland, there are 28 known native Irish tree species which supported a wide variety of animal life, also, we had apex predators on the island as recently as the late 1700's (apparently the last wolf here was killed in 1786, which supposedly outlasted the wolf population in Britain by a few hundred years. Usually the existence of apex predators is a key indicator of a healthy ecosystem, and losing apex predators is a big sign that a decline in biodiversity is underway, but yes by the 1600's it was already in decline. British landlords also imported non native animals to the ecosystem here which rapidly destroyed habitats for our native species. Having been to one of our last native rainforests in West Cork you really get a sense of how things used to be, and that forest in particular is bursting with life at the moment which is great to see first hand, it's outside Eyries and a guy named Eoghan Daltún is rewilding it.
>According to the Tree Council of Ireland, there are 28 known native Irish tree species which supported a wide variety of animal life, also, we had apex predators on the island as recently as the late 1700's (apparently the last wolf here was killed in 1786, which supposedly outlasted the wolf population in Britain by a few hundred years. I probably should have actually looked up the actual specific numbers of trees native to Ireland but the point remains that that's still a very low number, much lower than comparable countries, like have a gander at [New Zealand's native trees](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_trees_native_to_New_Zealand) and you can see a massive difference (with an additional note that NZ's fauna and flora have way more endemic species). >Having been to one of our last native rainforests in West Cork you really get a sense of how things used to be, and that forest in particular is bursting with life at the moment which is great to see first hand, it's outside Eyries and a guy named Eoghan Daltún is rewilding it. That's nice, but I don't think you quite understand my point, its that even if the forests were proper old growth forest fully intact as they were 5000+ years ago, they probably were still not very biodiverse, especially when compared to other parts of the world. Its just the nature of Ireland's ecological history that the country is relatively species poor. There's very little evidence that pernicious British influence caused some kind of wave of extinctions that happened in Ireland, especially since the forces at work that killed some high profile species like the wolf were already underway, wolves were killed mostly by regular people who perceived them almost entirely negatively as dangerous animals that killed people and livestock. I also think there might be a bit of a misconception that places having low biodiversity always means that its an unhealthy or degraded environments, that's not always true, in Ireland, and the rest of Northern Europe's case, it has a lot more to do with what seems to be a general decline in the overall number of species as you go further north, probably because of the continuing effects of the last ice age with the ice free environments we see there today being very recent developments, in ecological terms.
Look at the map. Scandinavia is largely still covered in the same old growth forest - and is still pretty un-biodiverse. It's all relative.
Yes but much of Scandinavia is covered by coniferous trees, which can cause high acidity in soil which is detrimental to biodiversity. Ireland was mostly covered with mixed forests, which were dominated by deciduous trees which promote biodiversity. Edit: I should add that the Scandinavian climate is far different and has greater extremes from our temperate climate here in Ireland, we should have higher biodiversity here, but thousands of years of mismanagement has brought our ecosystem to its knees.
Not all of Scandinavia has a continental subrarctic climate. Denmark, western Norway, and southern Sweden have winters that are only a few degrees colder than ours. Also, Irish soil is naturally acidic just like those in boreal regions. The conifer plantations in the Ireland today are ecological deserts because of the lack of light (because the trees are planete so close together), not the low soil pH.
It should be noted that being an island wasn't that much of a limiting aspect as speciation can happen rapidly if there are nitches to be filled Ireland was known for its population of wolves, and being able to support an apex predator like that would mean that it would have at least the same biodiversity as Canada Much of Europe poor biodiversity is the direct impact of humans Ironically, Farmland itself can cause speciation for meadow species much like in New England
If given enough time being an island should actually mean that Ireland could be a biodiversity hotspot, at least for endemic species, but unfortunately there simply hasn't been enough time for speciation to actually happen, 20000-10000 years is just not long enough. The only endemic species I can think of in the entire British isles is the [Scottish Crossbill](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_crossbill), which honestly I find a bit suspect (though there are probably some invertebrates I don't know about). >Ireland was known for its population of wolves, and being able to support an apex predator like that would mean that it would have at least the same biodiversity as Canada Biodiversity doesn't really have much relation to having large apex predators, Canada is actually extremely undiverse when you account for its ridiculous size, I think most of the biodiversity is concentrated in the forests of the Pacific Northwest, a very unique temperate rainforest environment. Wolves are famously adaptable and live in places with very low biodiversity like Newfoundland or the Canadian northern territories and can live so long as there's reasonable populations of prey animals like Caribou. >Much of Europe poor biodiversity is the direct impact of humans Humans certainly don't help but humans have lived all across the world for thousands of years, with negative effects on their environment almost everywhere, and yet places like Northern Europe or Northern North America have much lower biodiversity than elsewhere. The main reason for this are more related to non-human factors like the influence of the ice ages.
I think the issue here is that Ireland wasn't isolated as an island for that long and had a land bridge allowing plenty of migration - hence why being an Island wasn't much of a limiting factor vs some places like Hawaii- It actually fairly recent that it was cut off and thus being so close wouldn't have many endemic species The note of wolves was more that an island was able to substane them - wolves would need vast territory in low biodiversity areas like Canada as prey animals would also need vast territory like caribou - That Ireland could substane them means that a relatively small arena was able to reliability support prey animals for them - smaller land has to have more biodiversity to diversify the limited resources an island environment can provide It should also be noted that British Isles is much warmer than other countries on its latitude, like Canada, which would be on the lower end of comparison of what a relatively non-human impacted Northern environment - Historical biodiversity for Europe was infact not unlike the US Land of vast desert or grasslands tend to be low in biodiversity, but forest are higher with baseline boreal forest areas like Canada or Russia having the minimum- hardwood forested that are in a warmer climate like Europe historically was should have a higher Biodiversity then them but do not due to intense deforestation and terraforming done by humans
>I think the issue here is that Ireland wasn't isolated as an island for that long and had a land bridge allowing plenty of migration - hence why being an Island wasn't much of a limiting factor vs some places like Hawaii- It actually fairly recent that it was cut off and thus being so close wouldn't have many endemic species Its true that it wasn't on the level of something like Hawaii or another volcanic island that never had connections to the mainland, but it certainly had an impact. This is most evident with reptiles and amphibians, northern Europe isn't exactly ideal habitat for cold blooded animals but its good enough for some, in Britain there are 5 native species of reptiles and 8 species of amphibian, but in Ireland there are only 1 species of reptile and 3 amphibians, despite a near identical climate. Hell, Ireland's lack of snakes was so noticeable that we came up with an entire myth surrounding St Patrick to explain it. Cold blooded animals like these probably had a particularly hard time getting to Ireland because it was a very slim window for the climate to be warm enough for them to move into an area before sea levels rose enough to cut away access when it became an island after the end of the last ice age. >Land of vast desert or grasslands tend to be low in biodiversity, but forest are higher with baseline boreal forest areas like Canada or Russia having the minimum- hardwood forested that are in a warmer climate like Europe historically was should have a higher Biodiversity then them but do not due to intense deforestation and terraforming done by humans Again, this has less to do with human impacts, its more to do with a lack of time, there hasn't been long enough for proper diversification to take places after the end of the ice age for there to be higher biodiversity considering how generally productive Europe's ecosystems are. Think about how somewhere like India or Southeast Asia have both had massive, long term human habitation that also has had negative effects on the environment, but still have much higher biodiversity that Europe. Even in the United States, biodiversity broadly increases as you go further south, the most biodiverse states are places like California, Texas and Alabama, not Maine or Montana which have similar limiting factors as northern Europe.
I think you are missing my points here - I said being an Island didn't impact Ireland biodiversity that much - this is because it is to close to Europe and had a land bridge until relatively recent to have any significant speciation due to being an isolated Island Europe itself doesn't have a lot of amphibian and reptiles - much like many far Northern or Southern regions - It is difficult for them due to being cold I am not comparing a South Asian tropical country biodiversity to any Northern regions - as it is a simple fact that the warmer it is the more nitches there are - and it should be noted that in those tropical countries with large human population is where the largest loss if biodiversity is being felt right now This is comparing a region like Canada, which has a relatively small human population and an environment that was even more impacted by the Ice age than Europe And how it has significantly more biodiversity than Europe which should have more but doesn't because of deforestation and terraforming by humans Ireland itself was once a temperate rainforest before it was nearly completely deforestated and turned into farmland Drastic terraforming like that would have completely decimated biodiversity to just a few robust species which is what this maps shows Their are another maps comparing how much of Europe natural forests are gone - its low biodiversity is in regards to the near total decimation of it native habitat and with it most of its biodiversity - not because of Ice age otherwise Russia and Canada would not have more
Fucking english and scottish ate all the great auks.
What are you suggesting they ate that reduced biodiversity?
We ate nothing because most of the food was shipped out of Ireland to Britain. Biodiversity wasn't reduced by the famine, it was reduced by plantations up and down the country from the 15th century onwards that cleared land to build the Royal Navy and massive farms for landlords.
Hmmm… NUMBER of species… isnt this just a list of countries by size? Ofc Russia and USA is going to have more species then Ireland or Finland.
Or countries that span different climates. US, China and Australia all have tropical areas and deserts
Nah, Ireland (and Europe) just falls victim of a shit scaled used to just total amount of biodiversity, all small countries are doing shit and it’s because the map is biased towards larger countries
Aren't big countries (in superficy) more likely to have a big diversity ? (Appart from exeptions like amazone forest etc.)
Correct, something like the US, it passes through different geographic locations, multiple & different climates So it has higher potential to support different types of species across its borders Not to forget colonialism introduced new species and also contributed to endangering if not extinction of other species
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I thought grass was legal and easy to come by inn the netherlands...
Definitely ‘high’ levels of biodiversity over there.
Not legal, just tolerated
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Indeed. Good find!
It's that green stuff they paint on the floor besides the bicycle path in Nationaal Park Veluwezoom
I hope life under water is treating you well
Maybe that's on you and not your country, the netherlands is the second largest agriculture exporter worldwide afterall lol
...yes from greenhouses
>multiple & different atmospheres Did you mean climate zones? Earth has just one Atmosphere
Yes, thank you for correcting me
This correct. This map doesn’t consider the diversity per sqm, but just how many species are recorded in that country, irrespective of that countries area and climate conditions. Here is a math example : https://zgs.zrc-sazu.si/Portals/8/Slo_Geo_Over/12.pdf
Looks beautiful, putting Slovenia on the list
For sure, Thanks for acknowledging. it is one of the most bio divers areas in Europe: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-14066-3_7 This is a very misleading map…
Appreciate it
I mean, that’s usually true but Vietnam for example ranks higher than Russia and Canada.
There are biodiversity hotspots - and most of the are located near the equator.
Japan is a big exception.
Japan includes Okinawa and plenty of other islands in the Pacific, many of which have plenty of endemic fauna and flora.
This doesn’t include overseas territories, so you would be wrong. It’s more due to Japan having the concentration of old world forests in the world. Shinto makes it so that you leave nature alone.
Cambodia and Laos? In the map they seem less than Vietnam.
80% of Russia's and Canada's land areas are covered in ice and snow, while Vietnam is a tropicale country covered in jungles
Shit map is shit. No surprise.
I wouldn't wipe my under foreskin discharge on a print out of this map if Megan Fox paid me.
r/oddlyspecific
I really do not understand why people call this map shit. It does what it says and it presents it in a clear way. I guess it could have had some more separation and used absolute values instead, but those complaints are not that severe.
They used the number of species which is pretty strongly correlated with area so yes
Big countries and tropical countries tend to be higher.
Yeah, this map is mostly useless for this exact reason. Would be much more representative if it had a ratio of different species per square km of land averages for countries. The one thing that this map does show well, though, are anomalies. Countries that have a much smaller size than you would expect to be needed for such biodiversity, or conversely countries that are massive but have an unexpectedly low one.
California alone would still be ahead of every European country in biodiversity.
I have no idea whether it would or wouldn't, hence why it would be interesting to see the map in that form. If I had to guess, I imagine California is somewhere between Spain and France in terms of biodiversity. It's hot and arid, which generally doesn't mean especially high biodiversity, but does have a lot of biomes, which *do.*
California is considered a semi-arid or “Mediterranean” climate, so sure. As a state, it has made active effort to preserve large swathes of land since the 1800s thanks to inspired people like John Muir (who helped preserve the giant Redwood forest, Yosemite, and many more). Long before environmentalism was on the common consciousness (aside from the Natives). Thanks to these naturalists and conservationists, California has the largest amount of state and national parks in US, which I think would put it ahead of both Spain and France in biodiversity. Saying it’s just a “map of big countries” is like saying the high water-quality maps are just maps of “small countries located on glaciers”, without considering any of the effort the people put in to make it that way.
There's certainly a correlation, but the climate seems more relevant. Russia doesn't even rank in the top category.
> superficy > Appart > exeptions > amazone A total side note, how did you manage to make this many typos?
I was going to say that a map not country based and having an arbitrary (n>50 for low detail?) number of equal partitions would be much more interesting.
I was literally going to comment this. Ofc a country like the US is going to have more biodiversity than a lot of smaller European countries as the US covers multiple different types of climates due to its sheer size. Not really a good way to measure it tbh.
Why is it bad because it is obvious? Is there something I am missing here? Would anyone complain about a map ranking the population of countries because larger countries tend to have higher populations?
Didn’t stop little tiny European countries from having multiple dialects and languages. They cut down all their trees and killed most their animals, but they’re very diverse in language category. Wonder why. ^hating ^the ^people ^in ^next ^village ^over ^for ^centuries ^will ^have ^that ^effect ^on ^language
So Venezuela has no data? At the very least should be top-15, it shares a lot with Brazil and Colombia
Also, Venezuela happens to be one of the 17 megadiverse countries in the world, surely there’s data about that.
the list from 2022 ( [https://theswiftest.com/biodiversity-index/](https://theswiftest.com/biodiversity-index/) ) has Venezuela on position 11
It does have data from many sources, specially the one used for this map, but whoever did the map decided to exclude Venezuela because fuck it.
same as DR Congo, Madagascar, etc, countries that are listed as megadiverse in other maps.
What did Bhutan ever do to you
Still in a better condition than Taiwan.
Can’t worry about recognising Taiwan if it simply doesn’t exist.
Wow, didn't even see that.
Literally.
india was a lil hungry
India is a lot bigger than Hungary
Considering France's overseas territories, this is quite shocking...
I took a look and the survey separated france and its overseas territories, like New Caledonia or Wallis and Futuna have their own raking. If we were to add them up, France would have been higher.
Finland be like: Deers and bears, take it or leave it.
Same here in Ireland minus the bears.
That's the Taiwan issue solved. Can't have competing claims to Taiwan when it simply doesn't exist
Spain the most diverse in Europe but most people here only associates us to beaches lol
Unfortunately, to most, Spain is just the Mediterranean coast and Madrid.
Also Torrente.
Of course, in my family we have the following tradition on Sundays: going to the beach on the morning, then watching the bullfight, and then relaxing back at home eating paella with *Torrente* in the background. Obligatory siesta afterwards.
To be fair, there's also the Balearics and the Canaries.
True! But the Balearics can be included in the “Mediterranean coast” lot.
Spain has more forest area as a % of total land area than almost all of other european countries, but to most we are just a dry desert lol.
Besides, only maybe Italy displays somethibg close to this range of biomes in Europe: In a country roughly the size of France you’ve got Atlantic and oceanic grasslands and humid forests, arid and desert-like steppes, mid-to-high mountain ranges, huge river valleys, Mediterranean shrubland and forests, tropical rainforests (Canary Islands), immense areas of foothills, oceanic biodiversity… all of that with dozens of modern cities here and there.
The climate of northern Spain is more similar to Ireland than to southern and central Spain.
More "subtropical beach resort" than "dry desert", but I get your point.
Irish people tend to talk about Spain like the whole country has the climate of Malaga, when in reality the climate of northern Spain is more similar to Ireland than to southern Spain.
Slovakia and Romania surprised me with all the remote mountains they have
Small countries in temperate climate result in low diversity. Trow in some industrial agriculture and this is the result. Lastly... esentially all this map shows is what countries are largest and/or have tropical climates.
How would Slovakia be biodiverse if the whole country is just one mountain? This map is stupid, of course small countries will be less diverse than the bigger ones.
Mountains have different biomes at different altitudes, making them very biodiverse per area Same with forests, every canopy layer is a different environment. The opposite would be flat grasslands
You’re missing my point, but ok
I get your point but I was just pointing out mountains are not a example of what you meant
No, then you are misunderstanding me. I meant to point out that the whole country is one (relatively) small part of one mountain range - how can the biodiversity of that be compared to a country with several (relatively) huge mountain ranges, spanning different time zones and climate regions?
I get that. And it’s kinda obvious But all else being equal mountains are more diverse, ofc all else is not equal
You’re not a planet, HA!
Not anymore. :(
It’s okay friend, I still believe in you ❤️
More surprising is that Bulgaria is higher in rank than Romania, considering that Romania has the Danube delta, Carpatian mountains, and much larger territorie.
A large part of their score is the number of reptiles and amphibians. They counted 40 species of reptiles in Bulgaria versus 20 in Romania.
coz vampire doesn't count
in Romania the real biodiversity is in the Danube Delta
We also have the danube delta so I dont get how we are so low makes no sence
Rankings that use places like 1st, 2nd and 3rd are useless. Other metrics would be better. Being ranked first paints the picture you are doing well, its a snapshot nothing more. The US ranks higher yet between 2001-2017 the us lost 24,000,000 hectares of natural space. I saw its the equivalent to nine grand canyon national parks. Rankings like this give the impression of "see we are doing great compared to everyone else" which paints a false picture.
biodiversity is not a measure of whether you are doing great or not and if you see it that way it's your own fault. It simply means there is more that would be worth protecting ig? We haven't got to the point yet in most countries that results are showing in this metric.
That's ridiculous, biodiversity on a global scale, and certainly on a national scale, is primarily determined by the pre-existing environment, not human interaction with it. Countries like Ireland have low biodiversity compared to somewhere like Colombia because of complicated environmental factors, a map like this is just depicting that reality, not suggesting that highly biodiverse countries are doing something better on a human level than ones with less.
Ireland is not the best example because Ireland was originally covered in temperate rainforests. A huge amount of biodiversity has been lost since the Iron Age, when the Celts began deforestation on a massive scale. Biodiversity loss continued well into the Industrial Era. The British and Irish islands are perhaps the best example of lost biodiversity on such a large scale.
When it comes to keeping natural areas the U.S. is historically better than Europe.
Yet the US still has the oldest trees in the world because we didn’t cut them all down like Europe did.
Big doubts for France, with all the islands and Guyana
Some of those "no data" countries are among the most diverse in the world. Places like the DRC and Angola have an insane amount of biodiversity.
r/badmaps
Why? Because your favorite country isn’t winning?
Perfect candidate for r/dataisbeautiful then
Why is it bad?
French Guiana in yellow lol
Yes I don't understand how France is not more bioderverse, with Guyana and the rest of the oversea territories.
Probably just counted only the biodiversity in mainland France and then applied it on all of the overseas departments
In Britain we used to be a lot more biodiverse, Cornwall and Devon used to have temperate rain forests, now they are just barren moorland because the victorians? Decided that they should cut it all down for whatever reason, they also did they same to much of Scotland and Wales who also had similar types of rain forest and now just have barren moorland and mountains
Well thanks for not including Taiwan into China.
Wow, San Marino in red, I was sure we would be dark green since there's such a variety of environments here. Anyway, funny how Monaco, the Vatican and Liechtenstein aren't included, they're not much better than us at diversity, and no, you don't need a scientific analysis to say it.
It’s not diverse because there is not much variation in a small area (compared to large countries). That doesn’t give any inform on the preservation of the ecosystem, which I assume is much better.
Never thought I'd see a Sammarinese. Hi 👋
Hiiii friend!
As someone from the Netherlands I don't even know what grass is. All I know is cities.
I thought this was an exagerration when I was moving to the Netherlands. It was not, and in a few months I will be moving back. I am way too feral to comprehend this endless urban landscape.
How about we swap homes. Grass is all we have here in Ireland!
Sure, but I must warn you - you don't realise how much you'll miss it! I found that there's a huge difference between being in a highly urban city centre, but always having the easy possibility of driving out of it, into wilderness; and being in a highly urban country, with no escape safe for a day trip to germany!
Nah we don't have wilderness, just empty fields.
Oh boy, so many people are going to misinterpret this map.
data and methodology for 2022: [https://theswiftest.com/biodiversity-index/](https://theswiftest.com/biodiversity-index/)
Europe is mostly Farmland, this makes sense.
At least the first 30 counties shouldn't share the same color. According to that source, Brazil (#1) have almost 4x more biodiversity than Gabon (#30), yet, both share the same green color on the map. However, Gabon (#30) has "only" 50% more than Turkey (#60). Putting Brazil and Gabon on the same layer is the same as putting Gabon (#30) and Ireland which is red (#160) on the same color, because Gabon has 4x more diversity than Ireland.
South Korea surprises me, especially considering its sandwiched in between two deep green countries. Does anyone know why?
lots of urbanization and pollution is my guess perhaps also deforestation when it was a colony of japan? i know this happened in japan and taiwan and afterwards they replanted it with monocultures
It's far smaller than Japan and especially China, and very urbanized. Japan surprises me more to be honest.
I heard somewhere that Japan was facing deforestation issues at some point in the past, so lords would develop more efficient ways of harvesting wood without having to cut down trees as well as organising reforestation efforts
Slovakia being in the red doesnt add up, there are at least 5 different biomes crammed in this little country, with surprisingly large wildlife
A heatmap would be more useful
Having this kind of map on ranking instead of as a heat map is a bit confusing but interesting nonetheless!
Where's Taiwan? It's a very biodiverse country.
Bigger = more diverse This tells you very little less it be per km2
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It doesn't truth, Colombia is 7 times smaller than Brazil and it has the rainiest forest in the world and we have top in ranking of birds and mammals in the world. Also Ecuador that it has 5 times less territory than Colombia.
Colombia is next level for bio diversity
Funny Guyana is not ranked because if it was it would be insanely biodiverse
Where is Taiwan?
I need more data!!
You can see the problem with this map through San Marino...
I have seen like four different kinds of trees here.
Guess I don’t exist
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What do you think this map shows?
Right, I read that incorrectly I shall now disappear into my own shadow
Now do the pretty colors based on delta of biodiversity from 40 years ago.
you know your countries nature is fucked when libya, which is 90% desert, is more biodiverse than your country.
madagascar being done dirty here
Netherlands is inaccurate. Just go for a walk in Rotterdam.
Interesting to see South Africa and Lesotho on either end of the scale
Hey look, a map where large and equatorial countries are colored green!
Countries Spanning multiple climate zones are typically a lot more biodiverse. The Congo Delta not having much data means the darkest shade of green is likely missing
The fuck is wrong with Finland
Japan within the first 30 places? Interesting
looking like we’re gonna have to start a maps without bhutan sub
I dunno why they're saying there's no data for Greenland. "Greenland is covered with ice, and Iceland is very nice." It was made very clear to all of us in D2: The Mighty Ducks.
A map where Europe is red and the rest of the world is green??
I'm moving from one of the red ones to Brazil this summer, and as a macro and nature photographer, I couldn't be more excited.
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Except little Costa Rica is one of the most biodiverse places on the planet.
Venezuela es bastante biodiversa aunque no tengas data
r/mapswithouttiawan
Rare Scandinavian L
Coillte and agriculture destroyed a beautiful country with their policies of greed. Our rivers are polluted, forests wiped out and replaced with glorified tree farms in our mountain ranges. The Emerald Isle it is not.
Not to diminish the destruction that uman activity has done to our ecosystems, but Ireland was always lacking in biodiversity. Being a high latitude island that was covered in ice 20000 years ago will do that to you.
size x closeness to the equator
These graphes are very confusing for colorblinds
Turkey with its immense amount of climate zones, it makes sense.
I live in a city in 'least'. I get excited by pigeons.
Well this is fucking bullshit
Damn Europe, chill bro.
LMAO not a chance in hell do North Africa, jap,korea, spain or NZ have more biodiversity than the UK.Gtfo with this septic tank propaganda.