On the Termination of species
By: W. Wayt Gibbs
Notes:
- Robert M. May states that extinction rate accelerates into the past 100 years to roughly 1,000 times before humans showed up.
- May's lecture grew more depressing. He complained that biologists and conservationists alike, are afflicted with "total vertebrate chauvinism" They bias toward mammals, birds and fish when most of the diversity of life lie somewhere else. It undermines scientists' ability to predict reliability and consequences -of biodiversity loss. Raises questions about high-priority hotspots.
- Danish statistician, Bjorn Lomborg states that the reports of death of biodiversity is exaggerated.
- Scientists question the conservation movement's overriding emphasis on preserving rare species and threatened hotspots in which they are concentrated.
- May's claim shocks those who doesn't follow the biodiversity issue, but prompt no gasp from conservation biologists. They heard variations of this since 1979.
- Norman Myers guessed that 40,000 species lose their last member each year and one million will be extinct by 2000
- Lomborg argues that there is not evidence to prove this would happen. He alleges that environmentalists ignored recent evidence of tropical deforestation not taking toll it was feared. Best models project extinction rate of 0.15 percent of species per decade.
- Species of plants, mammals, insects, marine invertebrates and other groups all exist for about the same time. Survival time varies among groups by factor of 10 or more with mammals being least durable.
- Disaster scenarios are based on independent lines of evidence that point to fast and rising extinction rate. Most accepted is the species-area relation. As area of habitat falls, number of species living in it drops by the third root to sixth root. The middle value is the fourth root, which means when you eliminate 90 percent of habitat, species fall by half.
- Leave conservationists with less sense of urgency with handful of weak political and economic arguments. Force them to realize that species in trouble today are already members of the doomed
- Majority of us advocate a shift from saving things; the products of evolution, evolution itself
try to conserve the greatest amount of evolutionary history
Summary:
This article is very interesting because it talks about extinction rates that has rapidly increased because the existence of us humans. People predict how mass prediction would be like. One prediction is that 15-20% species would die off by 2000, and they also think that 1,000,000 species would be extinct by 2000. Also a recent estimate predicts that about 27,000 thousand species go extinct every decade. There is also a conflict on saving the land or its species. Scientists are trying to find when the mass extinction will occur by finding disappearing and notes that we are now on the breaking edge of the sixth great wave of extinction.
Reflection:
I think this article is important because this article is basically a debate between the scientists. They argue and disagree about each others opinions instead of actually trying to help the animals in danger and not being able to find the exact rates of extinction. We habe yet to find the current rate of extinction. I think we should focus on the animals tat are endangered because they do help out and conserve the land. They are very vulnerable and need our help to survive.
This article is very interesting because it talks about extinction rates that has rapidly increased because the existence of us humans. People predict how mass prediction would be like. One prediction is that 15-20% species would die off by 2000, and they also think that 1,000,000 species would be extinct by 2000. Also a recent estimate predicts that about 27,000 thousand species go extinct every decade. There is also a conflict on saving the land or its species. Scientists are trying to find when the mass extinction will occur by finding disappearing and notes that we are now on the breaking edge of the sixth great wave of extinction.
Reflection:
I think this article is important because this article is basically a debate between the scientists. They argue and disagree about each others opinions instead of actually trying to help the animals in danger and not being able to find the exact rates of extinction. We habe yet to find the current rate of extinction. I think we should focus on the animals tat are endangered because they do help out and conserve the land. They are very vulnerable and need our help to survive.