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When a species dies out, the Earth’s ability to maintain ecosystem services is eroded to a degree. Further, species are links in ecosystems and, as they disappear, the species they interact with are likely to disappear as well. They say that it is caused by an ever-increasing population and consumption rates. The scientists say that the ongoing sixth mass extinction may be the most serious environmental threat to the persistence of civilisation, because it is irreversible. These are the species most likely to be lost in the sixth mass extinction event ( Source: PNAS ). You might also like: EU Pledges To Raise €20bn Annually to Boost Biodiversity A graph showing the number of species with fewer than 1,000 individuals and number of species whose conservation status had been evaluated by the IUCN. The scientists warned that ‘extinction breeds extinction’, where close ecological interactions of species on the brink tend to move other species towards extinction, creating the domino effect. The analysis also showed that 388 species of land vertebrates had populations under 5,000 individuals and 84% lived in the same regions as the species with populations under 1,000, creating the conditions for a domino effect. Further, more than 400 vertebrate species became extinct in the last century, extinctions that would have taken up to 10,000 years in the normal course of evolution, illustrating humanity’s profound effect on the planet and those that live on it.
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Historic data for 77 of these species shows that they had lost 94% of their populations in the last century. The land vertebrates on the brink of extinction, with fewer than 1,000 individuals left, include the Sumatran rhino, the Española giant tortoise and the harlequin frog. Given the vast amount of time since life first evolved on the planet, “short” is defined as anything less than 2.8 million years. What is a Mass Extinction Event?Ī 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. The scientists identified 515 species with populations below 1,000 and about half of these had fewer than 250 individuals remaining. 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.
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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. 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. According to a recent analysis, the sixth mass extinction of wildlife on Earth is accelerating.