The impact of climatic changes and biological interactions in changing the Iraqi wild animal biodiversity (western Basra governorate as a model)

This study was conducted to shed light on the impact of climatic changes to which Basra Governorate was exposed and some of the factors influencing biodiversity, especially wild animal diversity in the west of Basra Governorate. By man through the increasing destruction of the environment through the release of environmental pollutants, especially greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, methane, nitrogen oxides and other gases as a result of industrial activities and means of transportation and the increasing burning of waste and others, or from the natural environmental pressures that are originally the result of human activities. The problem of the study was to search for an answer to the following question: What is the impact of climate changes and biological interactions on the change of wild biodiversity? And I assumed that the climatic changes that afflicted the whole world and Iraq in general and the study area in particular had a significant impact on the change of wild biodiversity in the western side of Basra Governorate. The aim of the study is to identify the reality of wild biodiversity, one of the most important things that specialists should delve into in order to reach results that may benefit the competent authorities. The study concluded that there is a clear effect of the climate change witnessed in the study area, as the climatic characteristics such as temperatures (maximum and minimum) and wind speed recorded an upward trend during the period from (1976-2020), while there was a trend towards a decrease in relative humidity and precipitation. precipitation for the aforementioned period, while the biological interactions (such as competition and predation) as well as overgrazing, increasing population numbers and investing natural resources in the study area had a prominent role in affecting wild animal biodiversity through the extinction of some types of biodiversity with the threat of extinction of some other species due to change The environmental status of biodiversity. The study recorded the extinction of ten species and the threat of about fifteen other species at risk of extinction.