Global Extinction Research Articles

Sustainability-national and international initiatives in intensive care and emergency medicine

Climate change with global warming, natural disasters, species extinction and soil erosion is doubly relevant for medicine: On the one hand, heat waves, floods and other natural disasters lead to new disease patterns to which healthcare systems must adapt. On the other hand, the global healthcare system itself contributes to these effects, as it is estimated that the CO2 footprint of all healthcare facilities accounts for around 5% of global greenhouse gas emissions. National and international initiatives to promote sustainability concepts in intensive care and emergency medicine. Research on homepages of national and international (specialist) societies dealing with intensive and emergency care medicine and corresponding PubMed search (sustainability and climate change and emergency or intensive care medicine). Six of the 12national specialist societies surveyed have taken initiatives on sustainability, notable among them the initiative of Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Wissenschaftlichen Medizinischen Fachgesellschaften (AWMF) for anew registration of the S1guideline "Sustainability in intensive care and emergency medicine". On the international scene, the activities of the Australian and New Zealand Intensive Care Society (ANZICS) with numerous publications on the topic of sustainability in intensive care medicine and the practical guide "Abeginners guide to sustainability in intensive care medicine" as well as the European Society of Anaesthesiology and Intensive Care (ESAIC) with aconsensus paper on sustainability should be highlighted. At the national level, initiatives on sustainability (guidelines, working groups, forums) are emerging and are attracting increasing attention and activity. The umbrella organization of German Intensive Care Medicine, the Deutsche Interdisziplinäre Vereinigung für Intensiv- und Notfallmedizin (DIVI), has so far shown no (discernible) activity; there is an urgent need for action here, and health policy and the German Medical Association should also become (even) more involved in reducing the CO2 footprint in the healthcare sector. Internationally, there are anumber of societies and institutions that are promoting the topic of "sustainability", although astronger focus on the area of intensive care and emergency medicine would also be desirable here.

Islands are key for protecting the world's plant endemism.

Islands are renowned as evolutionary laboratories and support many species that are not found elsewhere1,2. Islands are also of great conservation concern, with many of their endemic species currently threatened or extinct3. Here we present a standardized checklist of all known vascular plants that occur on islands and document their geographical and phylogenetic distribution and conservation risk. Our analyses of 304,103 plant species reveal that 94,052 species (31%) are native to islands, which constitute 5.3% of the global landmass4. Of these, 63,280 are island endemic species, which represent 21% of global plant diversity. Three-quarters of these are restricted to large or isolated islands. Compared with the world flora, island endemics are non-randomly distributed within the tree of life, with a total of 1,005 billion years of unique phylogenetic history with 17 families and 1,702 genera being entirely endemic to islands. Of all vascular plants assigned International Union for Conservation of Nature conservation categories5, 22% are island endemics. Among these endemic species, 51% are threatened, and 55% of all documented global extinctions have occurred on islands. We find that of all single-island endemic species, only 6% occur on islands meeting the United Nations 30×30 conservation target. Urgent measures including habitat restoration, invasive species removal and ex situ programmes are needed to protect the world's island flora. Our checklist quantifies the uniqueness of island life, provides a basis for future studies of island floras, and highlights the urgent need to take actions for conserving them.

Refuting the hypothesis of Centinelan extinction at its place of origin.

Scientists' limited understanding of tropical plant communities obscures the true extent of species loss caused by habitat destruction1. The Centinelan extinction hypothesis2,3 posits an extreme but widely referenced scenario wherein forest clearing causes the immediate extinction of species known only from a single geographic location. It remains unclear, however, whether the disappearance of such microendemics reflects their global extinction or insufficient collection effort at larger scales. Here we test these hypotheses by synthesizing decades of floristic data from the heavily deforested tropical cloud forest (TCF) at Centinela, Ecuador. We find that 99% of its putative microendemics have been collected elsewhere and are not extinct. Our field work also revealed new species, highlighting the enduring conservation value of TCFs and the intense efforts required to illuminate such plant diversity 'darkspots'4. Field and herbarium research remain essential to the conservation action needed to forestall large-scale plant extinctions in Earth's beleaguered cloud forests.

The coevolution of fungus-ant agriculture.

Fungus-farming ants cultivate multiple lineages of fungi for food, but, because fungal cultivar relationships are largely unresolved, the history of fungus-ant coevolution remains poorly known. We designed probes targeting >2000 gene regions to generate a dated evolutionary tree for 475 fungi and combined it with a similarly generated tree for 276 ants. We found that fungus-ant agriculture originated ~66 million years ago when the end-of-Cretaceous asteroid impact temporarily interrupted photosynthesis, causing global mass extinctions but favoring the proliferation of fungi. Subsequently, ~27 million years ago, one ancestral fungal cultivar population became domesticated, i.e., obligately mutualistic, when seasonally dry habitats expanded in South America, likely isolating the cultivar population from its free-living, wet forest-dwelling conspecifics. By revealing these and other major transitions in fungus-ant coevolution, our results clarify the historical processes that shaped a model system for nonhuman agriculture.

Global existence and extinction for a fast diffusion p-Laplace equation with logarithmic nonlinearity and special medium void

Abstract This article is devoted to the global existence and extinction behavior of the weak solution to a fast diffusion p p -Laplace equation with logarithmic nonlinearity and special medium void. By applying energy estimates approach, Hardy-Littlewood-Sobolev inequality, and some ordinary differential inequalities, the global existence result is proved and the sufficient conditions on the occurrence of the extinction and nonextinction phenomena are given.

Rapidly Evaluating Species at Risk Using Endemic Plants of Kosrae, Federated States of Micronesia

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)'s Red List of Threatened Species is regarded as the primary source of global extinction risk for species. Despite this importance, the IUCN has assessed less than 20% of the world′s estimated 400,000 flowering plants due to issues like insufficient data or a lack of experts. Thousands of conservation status assessments were generated recently in response to the call to action by the revised Target 2 of the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation (GSPC), “An assessment of the conservation status of all known plant species, as far as possible, to guide conservation action.” Accelerated extinction risk assessments are needed to identify species that are most at risk of extinction, which can then be thoroughly evaluated by the Red List assessment procedure. The land area in the Pacific Islands is significantly smaller than in other parts of the world. Plant species restricted to these islands may be identified as “At Risk” due to the limited land area of these islands, despite being widespread locally. Distribution and abundance data of single-island endemic plant taxa of Kosrae, Federated States of Micronesia, are analyzed and combined with digital elevation model files from this island, ArcGIS, and herbarium data, to calculate the percentage of land area that is available within a species′ elevational occurrence, a metric we have coined the Extent of Inhabitable Elevation of Island Occurrence (EIEIO). This metric can be used as a streamlined system to rapidly identify species that need plant conservation attention and allows for a swifter response to Target 2 of the GSPC.

Biodiversity impacts of recent land-use change driven by increases in agri-food imports

AbstractLand-use change such as the conversion of natural habitat to agricultural land has been a major driver of global biodiversity loss, prompting efforts at biodiversity restoration. However, restoration measures in certain areas can shift the detrimental biodiversity impacts elsewhere through the outsourcing of agri-food supply chains to biodiverse regions. This study examines the link between biodiversity impacts from land-use change and shifts in global supply chains from 1995 to 2022 by introducing a marginal allocation into multiregional input–output analysis. Almost 80% of recent global land-use change impacts were associated with increased agri-food exports from Latin America, Africa and Southeast Asia + Pacific (excluding China). Conversely, increased imports to China, the United States, Europe and the Middle East accounted for almost 60% of recent global land-use change impacts from a consumption perspective, despite decreasing domestic impacts through restoration. Decreasing biodiversity impacts in temperate and arid regions have been partially achieved by outsourcing agri-food supply to tropical biodiversity hotspots. This results in a cumulated global extinction rate (1.4% global potential species loss since 1995), exceeding the planetary boundary by about fifty times, thus highlighting the need for policies incentivizing habitat protection in tropical regions and sustainable sourcing in agri-food supply chains.

A landscape conservation perspective of state Species of Greatest Conservation Need

AbstractState Wildlife Action Plans (SWAPs), including lists of Species of Greatest Conservation Need (SGCN), outline state strategies for protecting species and habitats in the United States. In developing the current, second revision SWAPs, states are increasingly pursuing coordinated landscape conservation approaches. Analyzing SGCN lists in the first revision SWAPs, we found evidence that they already support multistate conservation. Most states address a common set of vertebrate and invertebrate groups, include most of the imperiled species from these groups, do not prioritize endemics over non‐endemics, and often include most imperiled species that are shared with neighboring states. Also, a regional SGCN coordination effort was successful. Although 65% of animals on each SGCN list were assessed as at elevated risk of extirpation by state authorities, only 43% of the combined national list were at elevated risk of global extinction. Over 40% of the combined animal SGCNs are considered globally apparently secure. Plants, snails, freshwater shrimps, and freshwater insects were poorly represented in SGCN lists. For the current SWAP revisions, we recommend improving foundational data on taxonomy, range‐wide distribution, and conservation status; expanded taxonomic coverage in SGCN lists; supporting existing and establishing new interstate initiatives; and diversifying funding mechanisms that target regional cooperation.

The role of infectious disease in the loss of biodiversity

Discussion of the relationship of infectious disease and biodiversity loss most commonly is framed in terms of the impact of diminishing biodiversity on zoonotic diseases among humans. Less examined is the role of infectious disease as a direct driver of biodiversity loss through species declines, local extirpations, and global extinctions. Recent studies, however, suggest that infectious diseases in wildlife populations are emerging at notably high rates. The diversity of emerging infectious diseases, magnified by the likelihood that there will be an increased frequency of outbreaks over time, have raised concern that infectious disease may play a strong role in wildlife species extinctions. The purpose of this Commentary is to draw attention to the growing role infectious pathogens are having in wild animal biodiversity loss and ecosystem disruption, changes which, in turn, rebound on human health and wellbeing.

Retelling the Story of the Birds and the Bees in the Age of Biodiversity Extinction

John Lovejoy coined the term biological diversity in 1980, made the first projection of global extinction rates, and 43 years later we are still discussing biodiversity and extinction in an inconsequential fashion. Extinction signs include the loss of millions of birds in the UK since 1970 and the decline in insects. Goulson summarizes in detail the scientific and biological evidence for the many species extinctions. Although most people do not notice the declines in insects, the loss of bees has been noted when bees’ use as pollinators began to be harnessed as a corporate and commercial activity. This is linked to intensive agricultural practices. The lobbying power of agrochemical companies shapes agricultural practices that directly impact the well-being of all species. Critical ecological discourse analysis of insect decline and the issues related to it is employed, going back to the famous speech given by Michael Halliday. Then corpus linguistic methods scrutinize material from the website of Syngenta, an agrochemical company. We ask whether the website of such a firm can uncover the necessary circumstances for such biodiversity. A corpus-assisted critical analysis of Syngenta’s business report, looks at computer-generated concordances of some of the relevant content words, like ‘crop’, ‘sustainable’, ‘soil’, ‘control’, ‘biodiversity’ and ‘water’. Hopefully, this study will encourage researchers to provide more indications of the disappearance of so many species, and not just birds and insects. But, to really achieve effective protection of biodiversity much more is needed.

Bending the curve of global freshwater biodiversity loss: what are the prospects?

Freshwater biodiversity conservation has received substantial attention in the scientific literature and is finally being recognized in policy frameworks such as the Global Biodiversity Framework and its associated targets for 2030. This is important progress. Nonetheless, freshwater species continue to be confronted with high levels of imperilment and widespread ecosystem degradation. An Emergency Recovery Plan (ERP) proposed in 2020 comprises six measures intended to "bend the curve" of freshwater biodiversity loss, if they are widely adopted and adequately supported. We review evidence suggesting that the combined intensity of persistent and emerging threats to freshwater biodiversity has become so serious that current and projected efforts to preserve, protect and restore inland-water ecosystems may be insufficient to avert substantial biodiversity losses in the coming decades. In particular, climate change, with its complex and harmful impacts, will frustrate attempts to prevent biodiversity losses from freshwater ecosystems already affected by multiple threats. Interactions among these threats will limit recovery of populations and exacerbate declines resulting in local or even global extinctions, especially among low-viability populations in degraded or fragmented ecosystems. In addition to impediments represented by climate change, we identify several other areas where the absolute scarcity of fresh water, inadequate scientific information or predictive capacity, and a widespread failure to mitigate anthropogenic stressors, are liable to set limits on the recovery of freshwater biodiversity. Implementation of the ERP rapidly and at scale through many widely dispersed local actions focused on regions of high freshwater biodiversity and intense threat, together with an intensification of ex-situ conservation efforts, will be necessary to preserve native freshwater biodiversity during an increasingly uncertain climatic future in which poorly understood, emergent and interacting threats have become more influential. But implementation of the ERP must be accompanied by measures that will improve water, energy and food security for humans - without further compromising the condition of freshwater ecosystems. Unfortunately, the inadequate political implementation of policies to arrest widely recognized environmental challenges such as climate change do not inspire confidence about the possible success of the ERP. In many parts of the world, the Anthropocene future seems certain to include extended periods with an absolute scarcity of uncontaminated surface runoff that will inevitably be appropriated by humans. Unless there is a step-change in societal awareness of - and commitment to - the conservation of freshwater biodiversity, together with necessary actions to arrest climate change, implementation of established methods for protecting freshwater biodiversity may not bend the curve enough to prevent continued ecosystem degradation and species loss.

A Possible Depiction of a Woolly Rhino from the Late Magdalenian Hunting Camp of Bad Kösen-Lengefeld in Central Germany

In Central Germany, rhino images were engraved on stone objects during the Magdalenian period, before the global extinction of the woolly rhino around 14,000 cal BP. Our recent excavations, at the Magdalenian open-air settlement site of Bad Kösen-Lengefeld, added to this record, yielding a limestone slab with a presumptive rhino portrait from an exactly stratified, thoroughly documented and well-dated cultural context. Here we present the unique limestone slab with an engraved animal image, unusual because of the head omitted, but — by contrast — aspects of the rear expressed in detail. During the excavation, the limestone slab was found related to a dwelling structure marked by postholes grouped around a central fireplace. Reindeer and horse were hunted close to, and killed at the site, and ice foxes were exploited for their furs. 14C-samples collected from all parts of the settlement attest for a short period of occupation(s) around 15,350 ± 50 cal BP making the rhino portrait one of the latest of its kind, eventually documenting the last sightings of woolly rhino in general, by humans. Moreover, its found context would make this animal portrait a fixture in Magdalenian style chronology.

Reliable biogeography requires fossils: insights from a new species-level phylogeny of extinct and living carnivores.

A central objective of historical biogeography is to understand where clades originated and how they moved across space and over time. However, given the dynamic history of ecosystem changes in response to climate change and geological events, the manifold long-distance dispersals over evolutionary timescales, and regional and global extinctions, it remains uncertain how reliable inferences based solely on extant taxa can be achieved. Using a novel species-level phylogeny of all known extant and extinct species of the mammalian order Carnivora and related extinct groups, we show that far more precise and accurate ancestral areas can be estimated by fully integrating extinct species into the analyses, rather than solely relying on extant species or identifying ancestral areas only based on the geography of the oldest fossils. Through a series of simulations, we further show that this conclusion is robust under realistic scenarios in which the unknown extinct taxa represent a biased subset of all extinct species. Our results highlight the importance of integrating fossil taxa into a phylogenetic framework to further improve our understanding of historical biogeography and reveal the dynamic dispersal and diversification history of carnivores.

History of Earth evolution

The paper delves deeply into crucial subjects spanning the birth of our solar system to humanitys ascendancy on Earth. It aims to enable humankind to gain a deeper understanding of our own origins and the Earths genesis and evolution. Given that Earth is our sole habitat, we must gain insights into the conditions necessary for it to sustain life or identify potential terrestrial planets suitable for human habitation. Throughout its history, Earth has weathered countless encounters with meteorites, comets, and asteroids, dating back to the formation of the solar system. These events, though rare, played a pivotal role in shaping our planets atmosphere, magnetic field, and unique environmental characteristics. Perhaps the most extraordinary aspect of Earths history is the emergence of life itselfa true marvel. Starting with single-celled protists, life evolved into complex multicellular organisms. Yet, a pivotal moment in Earths history came with a momentous global extinction event triggered by the rise of oxygen. This event reshaped the planets natural ecosystem, leading to the extinction of many species and the emergence of new ones. Humanitys own journey, navigating the depths of history, eventually led to our dominance over the Earth.

Writing Stories of Anthropocene Extinction: Barbara Kingsolver’s Fiction and Nonfiction

ABSTRACT Humans are the most numerous big animals on Earth, deciding the fate of other species. As the massive geological force in the current epoch, the Anthropocene, human-driven alterations of the Earth’s environment take the form of a few dangerous trends: climate disruptions, species extinction, pollution of air, land, and sea, and growth of the human population. Barbara Kingsolver’s fictional works Prodigal Summer (2000) and Flight Behaviour (2012) are environment writings and narratives that foreground the current ‘Anthropocene extinction’ crisis. She recounts the stories of the coyote clan and the already extinct red wolf, the American chestnuts that became nearly extinct, the Monarchs changing their flight direction to more severe climate conditions, the booming trade of wildlife and pet animals, and numerous other species readily available for human consumption and use. Kingsolver’s writings amalgamate scientific knowledge with poetics and intersect the fiction and realities of global species extinction. The paper examines why exploring literary texts on species extinction is important and focuses on the storytelling mode of Kingsolver’s extinction narratives. This study also presents the texts as new narratives of hope presenting the affirmative visions of a sustainable future and the coexistence of human-nonhuman species.

Predicting the Global Extinction Risk for 6569 Species by Applying the Life Cycle Impact Assessment Method to the Impact of Future Land Use Changes

Land use change is considered to be one of the key direct drivers of ecosystem erosion and biodiversity loss. The Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) serves as a robust tool for environmental impact assessment, featuring an advanced framework and indicators for assessing global biodiversity loss. In this research, we utilized the Species Distribution Model (SDM) to evaluate 6569 species across five taxonomic groups. We simulated habitat change and losses induced by land use changes under sustainable future scenarios from the present to 2100. This enables us to assess spatial extinction risks based on shifts in the global distribution of species. Our findings reveal a global biodiversity extinction risk of approximately 4.9 species/year, equivalent to an extinction rate of 745.9 E/MSY. Notably, higher-risk hotspots have been identified in regions such as South America, South Australia, and New Zealand. Although future sustainable scenarios involving land intensification may mitigate the biodiversity extinction rate, the objective of reaching 10 E/MSY by the end of this century remains a distant goal. By providing a more rational basis for biodiversity loss, the indicators of spatial extinction risk demonstrate the advantage of effectively reflecting regional characteristics.

Conservation Prioritization of Orthoptera Assemblages on a Mediterranean Island

In response to the ongoing global extinction, conservationists must prioritize future conservation investments to ensure that such measures are biologically effective and economically viable. To propose an effective conservation plan for Orthoptera assemblages on Cyprus Island, we introduce the Standardized Conservation Index (StCI), a biodiversity index accounting for the conservation value (ci), presence, dispersal ability, endemism and conservation status of a species. We evaluated the effect of eleven environmental variables on StCI, ci, species richness and the Shannon–Wiener diversity index, using linear and generalized linear models. Species and environmental data were collected in 60 localities that were placed along four elevational zones and included seven habitat types. Our results revealed the importance of rural mosaics and forests for the conservation of Orthoptera. The Shannon–Wiener diversity index failed to show the importance of high-altitude forests. The Orthoptera species diversity was favored by flower heads and the soil humidity, while rock cover and high shrubs had a positive and negative effect, respectively, on the StCI and ci values. Our results underline the value of StCI in complementing traditional diversity indices, as a scale-independent index that can be used for different taxa to prioritize sites of conservation concern.

Existence of solutions for anisotropic parabolic Ni-Serrin type equations originated from a capillary phenomena with nonstandard growth nonlinearity

We consider an initial boundary value problem for a class of anisotropic parabolic Ni-Serrin type equations with nonstandard nonlinearity in a bounded smooth domain with homogeneous Dirichlet boundary condition. Because the nonlinear perturbation leads to difficulties (it does not have a definite sign) in obtaining a priori estimates in the energy method, we had to modify the Tartar method significantly. Under suitable assumptions, we obtain the global existence, decay and extinction of solutions.

Global mismatches between threat mapping research effort and the potential of threat abatement actions to reduce extinction risk.

Threat mapping is a necessary tool for identifying and abating direct threats to species in the ongoing extinction crisis. There are known gaps in the threat mapping literature for particular threats and geographic locations, and it remains unclear if the distribution of research effort is appropriately targeted relative to conservation need. We aimed to determine the drivers of threat mapping research effort and to quantify gaps that, if filled, could inform actions with the highest potential to reduce species' extinction risk. We used a negative binomial generalized linear model to analyze research effort as a function of threat abatement potential (quantified as the potential reduction in species extinction risk from abating threats), species richness, land area, and human pressure. The model showed that threat mapping research effort increased by 1.1 to 1.2 times per standardized unit change in threat abatement potential. However, species richness and land area were stronger predictors of research effort overall. The greatest areas of mismatch between research effort and threat abatement potential, receiving disproportionately low research effort, were related to the threats to species of agriculture, aquaculture, and biological resource use across the tropical regions of the Americas, Asia, and Madagascar. Conversely, the threat of linear infrastructure (e.g., roads and rails) across regions, the threat of biological resource use (e.g., hunting or collection) in sub-Saharan Africa, and overall threats in North America and Europe all received disproportionately high research effort. We discuss the range of methodological and sociopolitical factors that may be behind the overall trends and specific areas of mismatch we found. We urge a stronger emphasis on targeting research effort toward those threats and geographic locations where threat abatement activities could make the greatest contribution to reducing global species extinction risk.

Improving Mercury Systematics With Molybdenum and Vanadium Enrichments: New Insights From the Cambrian‐Ordovician Boundary

AbstractThe Cambro‐Ordovician interval marks a significant transition from extinction to bio‐diversification in deep time. However, the relationship of bio‐transition to volcanism, commonly characterized by mercury (Hg) systematics in sedimentary records, has not been examined. We present the first Cambro‐Ordovician Hg systematics from the Scandinavian Alum Shale. Our results show pronounced Furongian Hg enrichments, coupled with positive Δ199Hg, Δ200Hg, and Δ201Hg values and negative Δ204Hg values that we ascribe to atmospheric Hg transport over long‐distances, while Early Ordovician Hg anomalies, characterized by near‐zero mass‐independent isotope values, indicative of submarine source. Our findings are supported by two new proxies: molybdenum‐Hg and vanadium‐δ202Hg co‐variations, demonstrating Hg systematics were strongly influenced by changes in source and depositional conditions. Constrained by a synchronous atmospheric‐tectonic‐oceanic model, we hypothesize Furongian subaerial volcanism contributed to global extinction and oceanic anoxia, whereas Early Ordovician submarine volcanism concurrent with ocean water upwelling promoted the nascent bio‐diversification.