Extinction Rates in British Nonmarine Invertebrates since 1900

Abstract

Two greatly understudied areas of science are the number of species on Earth (May 1994) and the rate at which they are becoming extinct (Myers 1994; Lawton & May 1995). These are formidable questions, with few regions having good let alone repeated surveys of fauna and flora. The biodiversity of Britain is among the best recorded, however, and Red Data Books (RDBs), which can be used to estimate British extinction rates, are available on several invertebrate taxa (Shirt 1987; Bratton 1991). A compilation of species listed in the RDB (Shirt 1987) as probably extinct before 1900 suggests that 1% of the British insect fauna became extinct this century (May et al. 1995). We use the same source to estimate the extinction rate, but we use probable extinctions since 1900.