Has the Earth's sixth mass extinction already arrived?
By: Barnosky, AD (Barnosky, Anthony D.)
[ 1,2,3 ] ; Matzke, N (Matzke, Nicholas)
[ 1 ] ; Tomiya, S (Tomiya, Susumu)
[ 1,2,3 ] ; Wogan, GOU(Wogan, Guinevere O. U.)
[ 1,3 ] ; Swartz, B (Swartz, Brian)
[ 1,2 ] ; Quental, TB (Quental, Tiago B.)
[ 1,2 ] ; Marshall, C (Marshall, Charles)
[ 1,2 ]; McGuire, JL (McGuire, Jenny L.)
[ 1,2,3 ] ; Lindsey, EL (Lindsey, Emily L.)
[ 1,2 ] ; Maguire, KC (Maguire, Kaitlin C.)
[ 1,2 ] ...More
NATURE Volume: 471 Issue: 7336 Pages: 51-57
DOI: 10.1038/nature09678
Published: MAR 3 2011
Abstract
Palaeontologists characterize mass extinctions as times when the Earth loses more than three-quarters of its species in a geologically short interval, as has happened only five times in the past 540 million years or so. Biologists now suggest that a sixth mass extinction may be under way, given the known species losses over the past few centuries and millennia. Here we review how differences between fossil and modern data and the addition of recently available palaeontological information influence our understanding of the current extinction crisis. Our results confirm that current extinction rates are higher than would be expected from the fossil record, highlighting the need for effective conservation measures.