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Biodiversity

Biodiversity

There are over 1.8 million known living species on Earth of animals, plants, fungi, protozoa, chromista (algae), bacteria, archaea, and viruses 1 and additional species that are not known. The current rate of extinction is debated 2 but generally believed to be substantially higher than the "background rate" before the development of human civilization.

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Source: Ceballos et al. 3.

The rate of extinction in the current geological era, officially known as the Holocene and informally as the Anthropocene, is not likely to reach the levels of the five greatest mass extinctions since the Cambrian Explosion but is nevertheless geologically significant.

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The five greatest mass extinctions since the Cambrian Explosion, when most modern animal phyla appeared, and the potential extinction resulting from human activity. Sources: Barash 4, Blackburn et al. 5, Encyclopedia Britannica 6, Gong et al. 7, Holland 8, House 9, IPBES 10, Nowak et al. 11, Raup and Sepkoski 12, Román-Palacios and Wiens 13, Schulte et al. 14, Sheldon 15.

Earth's biodiversity is at risk from a wide range of human activities, with agricultural land use leading.

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Number of species threatened or extinct by threat factor, determined by a Red List Category rating of Vulnerable, Endangered, Critically Endangered, Extinct in the Wild, or Extinct given by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Many species are threatened by multiple factors. Species are mostly plants and animals, and include some fungi and chromista (algae). Only species assessed by the IUCN are included, and thus there are likely more threatened species not counted. Source: IUCN 16.

Invasive Species

An invasive species is considered to be a species that is introduced to an environment--either through human activity or otherwise--and causes damage to that environment. Invasive species have been estimated to cost the world economy trillions of dollars.

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Source: InvaCost 17.

Invasive species are a major factor driving extinctions 18.

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Source: Blackburn et al. 19.

References

  1. Catalogue of Life. "2019 Annual Checklist". November 2019. ↩

  2. Pearce, F. "Global Extinction Rates: Why Do Estimates Vary So Wildly?". Yale Environment 360. August 2015. ↩

  3. Ceballos, G., Ehrlich, P., Barnosky, A., García, A., Pringle, R., Palmer, T. "Accelerated modern human–induced species losses: Entering the sixth mass extinction". Science Advances 1(5), e1400253. June 2015. ↩

  4. Barash, M. "Causes of the great mass extinction of marine organisms in the Late Devonian". Marine Geology 56, pp. 863–875. January 2017. ↩

  5. Blackburn, T., Olsen, P., Bowring, S., McLean, N., Kent, D., Puffer, J., McHone, G., Rasbury, E., Et-Touhami, M. "Zircon U-Pb Geochronology Links the End-Triassic Extinction with the Central Atlantic Magmatic Province". Science 340(6135), pp. 941-945. May 2013. ↩

  6. Encyclopedia Britannica. "End-Triassic extinction". Accessed May 13, 2020. ↩

  7. Gong, Q., Wang, X., Zhao, L., Grasby, S., Chen, Z., Zhang, L., Li, Y., Cao, L., Li, Z. "Mercury spikes suggest volcanic driver of the Ordovician-Silurian mass extinction". Scientific Reports 7, Article number: 5304. July 2017. ↩

  8. Holland, S. "Ordovician-Silurian extinction". Encyclopedia Britannica. Accessed May 13, 2020. ↩

  9. House, M. "Devonian extinctions". Encyclopedia Britannica. Accessed May 13, 2020. ↩

  10. IPBES. "Summary for policymakers of the global assessment report on biodiversity and ecosystem services of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services". S. Díaz, J. Settele, E. S. Brondízio E.S., H. T. Ngo, M. Guèze, J. Agard, A. Arneth, P. Balvanera, K. A. Brauman, S. H. M. Butchart, K. M. A. Chan, L. A. Garibaldi, K. Ichii, J. Liu, S. M. Subramanian, G. F. Midgley, P. Miloslavich, Z. Molnár, D. Obura, A. Pfaff, S. Polasky, A. Purvis, J. Razzaque, B. Reyers, R. Roy Chowdhury, Y. J. Shin, I. J. Visseren-Hamakers, K. J. Willis, and C. N. Zayas (eds.). IPBES secretariat, Bonn, Germany. 56 pages. 2019. ↩

  11. Nowak, H., Schneebeli-Hermann, E., Kustatscher E. "No mass extinction for land plants at the Permian–Triassic transition". Nature Communications 10, Article number: 384. January 2019. ↩

  12. Raup, D., Sepkoski, J. "Mass Extinctions in the Marine Fossil Record". Science 215(4539), pp. 1501-1503. March 1982. ↩

  13. Román-Palacios, C., Wiens, J. "Recent responses to climate change reveal the drivers of species extinction and survival". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 201913007. 2020. ↩

  14. Schulte, P. et al. "The Chicxulub Asteroid Impact and Mass Extinction at the Cretaceous-Paleogene Boundary". Science 327(5970), pp. 1214-1218. March 2010. ↩

  15. Sheldon, N. "Abrupt chemical weathering increase across the Permian–Triassic boundary". Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 231(3-4), pp. 315-321. February 2006. ↩

  16. International Union for Conservation of Nature. "Red List". Accessed April 16, 2020. ↩

  17. Leroy, B. et al. "Global Costs of Biological Invasions: Living Figure". Living Figure of InvaCost. February 2022. ↩

  18. Roberts, P. D., Diaz-Soltero, H., Hemming, D. J., Parr, M. J., Wakefield, N. H., Wright, H. J. "What is the evidence that invasive species are a significant contributor to the decline or loss of threatened species? A systematic review map". Environmental Evidence 2: 5. March 2013. ↩

  19. Blackburn, T. M., Bellard, C., Ricciardi, A. "Alien versus native species as drivers of recent extinctions". Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 17(4), pp. 203-207. May 2019. ↩