Accelerated modern human–induced species losses: Entering the sixth mass extinction
Top Cited Papers
Open Access
- 5 June 2015
- journal article
- research article
- Published by American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Science Advances
- Vol. 1 (5), e1400253
- https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.1400253
Abstract
The oft-repeated claim that Earth’s biota is entering a sixth “mass extinction” depends on clearly demonstrating that current extinction rates are far above the “background” rates prevailing between the five previous mass extinctions. Earlier estimates of extinction rates have been criticized for using assumptions that might overestimate the severity of the extinction crisis. We assess, using extremely conservative assumptions, whether human activities are causing a mass extinction. First, we use a recent estimate of a background rate of 2 mammal extinctions per 10,000 species per 100 years (that is, 2 E/MSY), which is twice as high as widely used previous estimates. We then compare this rate with the current rate of mammal and vertebrate extinctions. The latter is conservatively low because listing a species as extinct requires meeting stringent criteria. Even under our assumptions, which would tend to minimize evidence of an incipient mass extinction, the average rate of vertebrate species loss over the last century is up to 100 times higher than the background rate. Under the 2 E/MSY background rate, the number of species that have gone extinct in the last century would have taken, depending on the vertebrate taxon, between 800 and 10,000 years to disappear. These estimates reveal an exceptionally rapid loss of biodiversity over the last few centuries, indicating that a sixth mass extinction is already under way. Averting a dramatic decay of biodiversity and the subsequent loss of ecosystem services is still possible through intensified conservation efforts, but that window of opportunity is rapidly closing.Keywords
This publication has 27 references indexed in Scilit:
- Europe’s other debt crisis caused by the long legacy of future extinctionsProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2013
- Can a collapse of global civilization be avoided?Proceedings. Biological sciences, 2013
- Biodiversity and ecosystem services: a multilayered relationshipTrends in Ecology & Evolution, 2012
- Has the Earth’s sixth mass extinction already arrived?Nature, 2011
- Scenarios for Global Biodiversity in the 21st CenturyScience, 2010
- Ecological science and tomorrow's worldPhilosophical Transactions B, 2010
- Discoveries of new mammal species and their implications for conservation and ecosystem servicesProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2009
- Ecosystem services: From theory to implementationProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2008
- Human impacts on the rates of recent, present, and future bird extinctionsProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2006
- Global State of Biodiversity and LossAnnual Review of Environment and Resources, 2003