Sixth Mass Extinction of Wildlife Accelerating - Study
According to a recent analysis, the sixth mass extinction of wildlife on
Earth is accelerating. More than 500 species of land animals are on the brink
of extinction and are likely to be lost within 20 years; the same number were
lost over the whole of the last century. The scientists say that without the
human destruction of nature, this rate of loss would have taken thousands of
years and they warn that this may be a tipping point for the collapse of
civilisation.
The analysis, published in the journal Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences, looked at data on 29,000 land vertebrate species
compiled by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red
List of Threatened Species and BirdLife International. The scientists
identified 515 species with populations below 1,000 and about half of these had
fewer than 250 individuals remaining.
What is a Mass Extinction Event?
A mass extinction is usually defined as a loss of about three quarters
of all species in existence across the entire Earth over a “short” geological
period of time. Given the vast amount of time since life first evolved on the
planet, “short” is defined as anything less than 2.8 million years.
Previous Mass Extinction Events
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The Analysis
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Causes
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Consequences of the Sixth Mass Extinction
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Vertebrates on the brink as indicators of biological
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Sources/Links:
https://earth.org/sixth-mass-extinction-of-wildlife-accelerating/
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1922686117
https://earth.org/conservation/
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