The Sixth Mass Extinction: fact, fiction or speculation?
Hawaii Pacific University · Pacific Biosciences (United States) · +7 more institutions
Abstract
There have been five Mass Extinction events in the history of Earth's biodiversity, all caused by dramatic but natural phenomena. It has been claimed that the Sixth Mass Extinction may be underway, this time caused entirely by humans. Although considerable evidence indicates that there is a biodiversity crisis of increasing extinctions and plummeting abundances, some do not accept that this amounts to a Sixth Mass Extinction. Often, they use the IUCN Red List to support their stance, arguing that the rate of species loss does not differ from the background rate. However, the Red List is heavily biased: almost all birds and mammals but only a minute fraction of invertebrates have been evaluated against…
Citation impact
- FWCI
- 181.05
- Percentile
- 100%
- References
- 279
Authors
3- RHRobert H. CowieCorresponding
Hawaii Pacific University, Pacific Biosciences (United States)
- PBPhilippe Bouchet
Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, École Pratique des Hautes Études, Sorbonne Université, Institut de Systématique, Évolution, Biodiversité
- BFBenoît Fontaine
Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Canadian Heritage, Centre d'Écologie et des Sciences de la Conservation, PatriNat
Topics & keywords
- Extinction event
- IUCN Red List
- Extinction (optical mineralogy)
- Biodiversity
- Marine invertebrates
- Biota
- Invertebrate
- Ecology
- Life below water