AuroraGlacialis
10-28-2010, 04:23 AM
The paper highlights that the percentage of species threatened among vertebrates ranges from 13% of birds to 41% of amphibians. Although the study focused on vertebrates, it also reports on the levels of threat among several other groups assessed for the IUCN Red List, including14% of seagrasses, 32% of freshwater crayfish, and 33% of reef-building corals.
(from Nature's backbone at risk: World's vertebrates face an extinction crisis, assessment finds (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/10/101026184159.htm) , referencing to Science, 2010; DOI: 10.1126/science.1194442)
The article describes the current status of the ongoing anthropogenetic mass extinction. The study is a review, looking at the works of way over 100 authors, but focuses mostly on vertebrates. For these, they found that conservation efforts work, but only improved the status of 9% of the endangered species with the numbers of species entering that status beeing way higher. Also, I think the study shows, that because of the effectiveness of conservation efforts for specific families (like birds & mammals), one should be careful using these numbers to predict global extinction rates. People might be able to protect local bird species in England or endangered hamsters in Germany, reducing the loss of biodiversity in these countries, but the same may not be true for worms or insects in some other country. Science knows only a fraction of the species of the planet and describes only the losses and conservation efforts in that fraction. I think this means, that the number could even underestimate the total biodiversity loss if people do not take into account the limited and localized effect of conservation efforts.
In any case, from the numbers above, a third (for some families even much more) of the species on the planet are threatened by extinction. This rivals by far the famous "meteorite that wiped out the dinosaurs"!
(from Nature's backbone at risk: World's vertebrates face an extinction crisis, assessment finds (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/10/101026184159.htm) , referencing to Science, 2010; DOI: 10.1126/science.1194442)
The article describes the current status of the ongoing anthropogenetic mass extinction. The study is a review, looking at the works of way over 100 authors, but focuses mostly on vertebrates. For these, they found that conservation efforts work, but only improved the status of 9% of the endangered species with the numbers of species entering that status beeing way higher. Also, I think the study shows, that because of the effectiveness of conservation efforts for specific families (like birds & mammals), one should be careful using these numbers to predict global extinction rates. People might be able to protect local bird species in England or endangered hamsters in Germany, reducing the loss of biodiversity in these countries, but the same may not be true for worms or insects in some other country. Science knows only a fraction of the species of the planet and describes only the losses and conservation efforts in that fraction. I think this means, that the number could even underestimate the total biodiversity loss if people do not take into account the limited and localized effect of conservation efforts.
In any case, from the numbers above, a third (for some families even much more) of the species on the planet are threatened by extinction. This rivals by far the famous "meteorite that wiped out the dinosaurs"!