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Extinctions are a normal part of the evolutionary process, and the background extinction rate is a measurement of "how often" they naturally occur. Normal extinction rates are often used as a comparison to present day extinction rates, to illustrate the higher frequency of extinction today than in all periods of non-extinction events before it. [1]
Extinction Date Probable causes [2] Quaternary: Holocene extinction: c. 10,000 BC – Ongoing: Humans [3] Quaternary extinction event: 640,000, 74,000, and 13,000 years ago: Unknown; may include climate changes, massive volcanic eruptions and Humans (largely by human overhunting) [4] [5] [6] Neogene: Pliocene–Pleistocene boundary extinction: 2 Ma
A 1995 paper by Michael Benton tracked extinction and origination rates among both marine and continental (freshwater & terrestrial) families, identifying 22 extinction intervals and no periodic pattern. [56] Overview books by O.H. Walliser (1996) and A. Hallam and P.B. Wignall (1997) summarized the new extinction research of the previous two ...
The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature is the best known worldwide conservation status listing and ranking system. . Species are classified by the IUCN Red List into nine groups set through criteria such as rate of decline, population size, area of geographic distribution, and degree of population and distribution fragmenta
The surviving populations are in continual decline in 43% of those that are threatened. Since the mid-1980s the actual rates of extinction have exceeded 211 times rates measured from the fossil record. [148] However, "The current amphibian extinction rate may range from 25,039 to 45,474 times the background extinction rate for amphibians."
For example, in an article published in 2004, Otso Ovaskainen and Ilkka Hanski explained with an empirical example that when factors such as Allee effect or Rescue effect were included in modeling the extinction threshold, there were unexpected extinctions in a high number of species. A more complex model came up with different results, and in ...
More significantly, the current rate of global species extinctions is estimated as 100 to 1,000 times "background" rates (the average extinction rates in the evolutionary time scale of planet Earth), [71] [72] faster than at any other time in human history, [73] [74] while future rates are likely 10,000 times higher. [72]
In a 2019 review, David Wagner noted that currently the Holocene extinction is seeing animal species loss at about 100–1,000 times the planet's normal background rate, and that various studies found a similar, or possibly even faster extinction rate for insects.