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Humans Driving Extinction Faster Than Species Can Evolve, Say Experts
Conservationists say rate of new species slower than diversity loss caused by the destruction of habitats and climate change
Conservation experts have already signalled that the world is in the grip of the "sixth great extinction" of species, driven by the destruction of natural habitats, hunting, the spread of alien predators and disease, and climate change.
File photo shows a juvenile mountain gorilla feeding on leaves on the slopes of Mount Mikeno in the Virunga National Park. Seldom seen species of lemur, monkey and gorilla are among 25 primates facing near-certain extinction unless urgent measures are taken to protect them, according to a report. (AFP/File/Roberto Schmidt) However until recently it has been hoped that the rate at which new species were evolving could keep pace with the loss of diversity of life.
Speaking in advance of two reports next week on the state of wildlife in Britain and Europe, Simon Stuart, chair of the Species Survival Commission for the International Union for the Conservation of Nature – the body which officially declares species threatened and extinct – said that point had now "almost certainly" been crossed.
"Measuring the rate at which new species evolve is difficult, but there's no question that the current extinction rates are faster than that; I think it's inevitable," said Stuart.
The IUCN created shock waves with its major assessment of the world's biodiversity in 2004, which calculated that the rate of extinction had reached 100-1,000 times that suggested by the fossil records before humans.
No formal calculations have been published since, but conservationists agree the rate of loss has increased since then, and Stuart said it was possible that the dramatic predictions of experts like the renowned Harvard biologist E O Wilson, that the rate of loss could reach 10,000 times the background rate in two decades, could be correct.
"All the evidence is he's right," said Stuart. "Some people claim it already is that ... things can only have deteriorated because of the drivers of the losses, such as habitat loss and climate change, all getting worse. But we haven't measured extinction rates again since 2004 and because our current estimates contain a tenfold range there has to be a very big deterioration or improvement to pick up a change."
Extinction is part of the constant evolution of life, and only 2-4% of the species that have ever lived on Earth are thought to be alive today. However fossil records suggest that for most of the planet's 3.5bn year history the steady rate of loss of species is thought to be about one in every million species each year.
Only 869 extinctions have been formally recorded since 1500, however, because scientists have only "described" nearly 2m of an estimated 5-30m species around the world, and only assessed the conservation status of 3% of those, the global rate of extinction is extrapolated from the rate of loss among species which are known. In this way the IUCN calculated in 2004 that the rate of loss had risen to 100-1,000 per millions species annually – a situation comparable to the five previous "mass extinctions" – the last of which was when the dinosaurs were wiped out about 65m years ago.
Critics, including The Skeptical Environmentalist author, Bjørn Lomborg, have argued that because such figures rely on so many estimates of the number of underlying species and the past rate of extinctions based on fossil records of marine animals, the huge margins for error make these figures too unreliable to form the basis of expensive conservation actions.
However Stuart said that the IUCN figure was likely to be an underestimate of the problem, because scientists are very reluctant to declare species extinct even when they have sometimes not been seen for decades, and because few of the world's plants, fungi and invertebrates have yet been formally recorded and assessed.
The calculated increase in the extinction rate should also be compared to another study of thresholds of resilience for the natural world by Swedish scientists, who warned that anything over 10 times the background rate of extinction – 10 species in every million per year – was above the limit that could be tolerated if the world was to be safe for humans, said Stuart.
"No one's claiming it's as small as 10 times," he said. "There are uncertainties all the way down; the only thing we're certain about is the extent is way beyond what's natural and it's getting worse."
Many more species are "discovered" every year around the world, than are recorded extinct, but these "new" plants and animals are existing species found by humans for the first time, not newly evolved species.
In addition to extinctions, the IUCN has listed 208 species as "possibly extinct", some of which have not been seen for decades. Nearly 17,300 species are considered under threat, some in such small populations that only successful conservation action can stop them from becoming extinct in future. This includes one-in-five mammals assessed, one-in-eight birds, one-in-three amphibians, and one-in-four corals.
Later this year the Convention on Biological Diversity is expected to formally declare that the pledge by world leaders in 2002 to reduce the rate of biodiversity loss by 2010 has not been met, and to agree new, stronger targets.
Despite the worsening problem, and the increasing threat of climate change, experts stress that understanding of the problems which drive plants and animals to extinction has improved greatly, and that targeted conservation can be successful in saving species from likely extinction in the wild.
This year has been declared the International Year of Biodiversity and it is also hoped that a major UN report this summer, on the economics of ecosystems and biodiversity, will encourage governments to devote more funds to conservation.
Professor Norman MacLeod, keeper of palaeontology at the Natural History Museum in London, cautioned that when fossil experts find evidence of a great extinction it can appear in a layer of rock covering perhaps 10,000 years, so they cannot say for sure if there was a sudden crisis or a build up of abnormally high extinction rates over centuries or millennia.
For this reason, the "mathematical artefacts" of extinction estimates were not sufficient to be certain about the current state of extinction, said MacLeod.
"If things aren't falling dead at your feel that doesn't mean you're not in the middle of a big extinction event," he said. "By the same token if the extinctions are and remain relatively modest then the changes, [even] aggregated over many years, are still going to end up a relatively modest extinction event."
Species on the brink of being declared extinct
The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) lists 208 species as "possibly extinct", more than half of which are amphibians. They are defined as species which are "on the balance of evidence likely to be extinct, but for which there is a small chance that they may still be extant".
Kouprey (or Grey ox; Bos sauveli)
What: Wild cattle with horns that live in small herds
Domain: Mostly Cambodia; also Laos, Vietnam, Thailand
Population: No first-hand sightings since 1969
Main threats: hunting for meat and trade, livestock diseases and habitat destruction
Webbed-footed coqui (or stream coqui; Eleutherodactylus karlschmidti)
What: Large black frog living in mountain streams
Domain: East and west Puerto Rico
Population: Not seen since 1976
Main threats: Disease (chytridiomycosis), climate change and invasive predators
Golden coqui frog (Eleutherodactylus jasperi)
What: Small orange frog living in forest or open rocky areas
Domain: Sierra de Cayey, Puerto Rico
Population: No sightings since 1981
Main threats: Unknown but suspected habitat destruction, climate change, disease (chytridiomycosis) and invasive predators
Spix's macaw (or little blue macaw; Cyanopsitta spixii)
What: Bright blue birds with long tails and grey/white heads
Domain: Brazil
Population: The last known wild bird disappeared in 2000; there are 78 in captivity
Main threats: Destruction of the birds' favoured Tabebuia caraiba trees for nesting, and trapping
Café marron (Ramosmania rodriguesii)
What: White flowering shrub related to the coffee plant family
Domain: Island of Rodrigues, Republic of Mauritius
Population: A single wild plant is known
Main threats: Habitat loss, introduced grazing animals and alien plants
Source: IUCN and Royal Botanic Gardens Kew. To mark the International Year of Biodiversity, the IUCN is running a daily profile of a threatened species throughout 2010. See iucn.org.
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25 Comments so far
Show AllIt doesn't take experts to bring things like this to the attention of everyone else. Any one over the age of thirty knows extinctions are increasing.
When I was in college in 1970 there were very robust movements and programs developing focussed on zero population growth, and appropriate technology. Both of these movements were concerned with impacts of human activity on all life forms.
By 1980 growing corporate control of government assured that these movements were consigned to the dustbins of history. Manifest destiny then resumed its march way beyond its original "sea to shining sea" aspirations.
sad but true
are any of us really surprised?..............
Will there be a tipping point when the human species realizes that the environmental issue must be dealt with?
Just as most drug addicts don't start turning their lives around until they hit rock bottom, the human species will not reverse its conquest of nature voluntarily.
WE are the astroid hitting the earth this time!
as opposed to the one that hit mexico 65 million years ago!
but hey - that brought about a higher intelligence - mammals... maybe this will also acheive the same thing in another 65 million years.....
Plants and animals are our helpers. Plants will often grow in your location knowing that you will be needing them for medicine. The Earth Mother, if respected, will provide for our needs. Despite the sophistication of modern science, far more fundamental and essential understandings of Nature are absent given the narrow scientific view. Nature will inform if we listen quietly and patiently. Modern systems are ill equipped for such efforts. Change yourself and in time the natural rhythms will enfold and embrace you.
Thanths U are a living representation & manifestation of IT yourself & millions others are echoes ot IT.
In Soulidarity.
"So crabs, fish, and other marine life are washing up all dead from these growing dead zones in the oceans."
The so called "dead zones" only applies to oxygen breathers. The anaerobic bacteria are looking at more space for growth.
It's about time we, human, become less greedy.
We should protect the environment, especially the rain forests. (The rain forests cover 3% of Earth suffice, and have 50% of the world's bio-diversity.)
The more insistent we humans are of our singularity among all the other species of this planet -- the more aggressive, imperialistic and vocal we humans are in denigrating the other animals we feel "entitled to own, use, and kill" -- the more insignificant and petty we humans come to seem. Seen from this perspective, the humans species might well be on the way to dwindling down to mere dots, then a dot, then nothing. If this were to literally happen to us, bet your prime ribs it'd be NO loss for the surviving animals. They don't need us, we never were their keepers, and we have abused our privilege of sharing the Earth with them.
For the animals, sharing the Earth with us is like being forced into a cage with a psychopath!
Analysis is interesting . . . but not powerful. We know it's bad so this important truth is not "news". And it can make us feel more powerless.
There's a lot we actually can do and it feels good to be started.
http://www.RadicalRelocalization.com
How come Homo Sapiens are not on this list? pastoralists in poor nations will be extinct soon because of climate change. Thanks to 1st world polluters with their Cadillac Escalnte air craft carrier Sport Utility Vehicle and three door garage homes...and insataiable consumption...
Hey Frog, that was my first thought; Homo sapien sapiens driving extinctions faster than ever, only nobody is watching the road or holding the wheel.
My primary concern with engineered foods is their potential for extinction. A major historical cause of recent extinctions (maybe 1/3rd) already has been introduced species. I guess we're all glad that Eucalyptus is in America; but the plants and animals that went extinct due to this introduction aren't so glad. Genetic engineering poses the potential threat of another wave of 'introduced species'. Take a single example: you engineer 'frost tolerance' in strawberries. The farmer thinks this is great, and they are widely planted. But, the 'frost tolerant' gene has no intention of remaining in the population you put it in: "life, finds a way". Planted stawberries are soon cross-fertilizing with native strawberries just beyond the farmers fields. These natives give birth to a new master race of strawberries that can handle winters burden and these spread, willy-nilly, over the landscape, displacing plants that historically dominated due to their naturally-derived frost tolerance (and displacing the animals that eat those plants). Twenty years later, its 'introduced specie' extinction of multiple indigenous species, all over again.
I think our genetic scientists do a good job vetting genetically engineered foods for their potential chemical content; their appropriateness as human foods. But, all indications are that they don't vet their impact on the natural biosphere that surrounds and envelops our agriculture. Indeed, to some extent, they can't: that biosphere is extremely complex. But they are creating new species, with powerful survival strategies. Those species constitute life, and life has its own agenda. It has no intention of 'playing ball' with the scientists that create it.
Ah...the Malthusian nightmare coming to haunt Gaia theory.
It is not, however, as Thomas Malthus postulated, just the exponential increase in human numbers competing for finite resources; it is, in addition, how human beings organize themselves, and how that manifests to perpetuate biodiversity that factors in the equation.
The true challenge to mankind is how to achieve the balance between survival, reproduction and the defense of territory with justice, freedom and responsibility.
Unfortunately, we will never find that balance, because the animal in us will supercede the spiritual.
To a man and woman, the great nature writers have observed a profound spirituality and intuition of perfection that transcends any artificial condition created by human beings.
Those that look, do not see; those that listen, do not hear; those that purport to think, do not understand.
Such a pity; it didn't have to be this way.
They paved paradise, and put up a parking lot.
The most dangerous animal on earth is mankind....
~Some people live their whole lives without ever waking up~
"Critics, including The Skeptical Environmentalist author, Bjørn Lomborg, have argued that because such figures rely on so many estimates of the number of underlying species and the past rate of extinctions based on fossil records of marine animals, the huge margins for error make these figures too unreliable to form the basis of expensive conservation actions"
The error could be high or could be low. So the action should be taken according to the average value, to save biodiversity. If the critic believes this average represents an ideological bias, that's fine. Because the bias is crucial to the preservation of biodiversity.
Sooner or later, and preferably sooner, we have to become conscious of the unspoken battle we are engaged in, the granddaddy of all battles, the class war. The human assault on biodiversity is a side-effect of the human pursuit of dominance, or class war aggression. One may argue that most people are not class war aggressors, and simply pursue luxury/convenience, not dominance. But in fact our excess consumption, in the USA and increasingly elsewhere, is driven not internally within ourselves, but externally through the media campaigns of elites and their giant corporations, by the profit imperative, to dominate markets, at the expense of people and planet. This is class war aggression.
It would only be too expensive to save biodiversity if we value dominance over biodiversity. This battle of values is the class war. So it's a simple question of whether we're with the people (and the biosphere) or with the elites. We have to choose sides. And start fighting for biodiversity, and all the rest of the positive.
Geological evidence shows that at several times in the past a large percentage of species have become extinct. The absence of older species gives room for the evolution of new ones which fills the biosphere again. One event that reduced species by an extreme amount was the meteor impact of 65 million years ago. Another will be Homo sapiens, which will also extinct itself. It is only our arrogance that makes us think that everything here is for us. We are just a contagious population that has temporarily outgrown the carrying capacity of our planet for us. We will crash along with many species we take with us. Just imagine the multitude of life forms that will evolve when we are gone.
"Humans Driving Extinction Faster Than Species Can Evolve, Say Experts" And this is news?
The irony, absurdity, and orthodox heresy of both the headline and accompanying story give hope that the twaddle that is both evolutionary theory and creationism will yet yield to scientific understanding.
The choice is not between the equally absurd twaddles of evolution and creationism, it is between the common understanding of "what is" rather than "what we wish as hard as we can contemplate was so despite overwhelming and undeniable evidence to the contrary.
Poet