BIO 3115 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Beringia, Mastodon, Habitat Destruction
19 Feb 2018
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Document Summary
Evolutionary history of extinction: extinction risks aren"t necessary a linear function and don"t necessarily follow extinction cause. Taxa that have gone extinct on evolutionary time scales have generally not died. The fate of animals is to generally go extinct, or to disappear . Although the evolutionary fate of all species is extinction (on evolutionary time scales), diversity for most of earth"s history tends to increase, except during mass extinctions. Paleontological data suggest that in recent history at least, extinction is almost invariably associated with human colonization of unoccupied areas: not necessarily the cause, but human arrival did contribute substantially. Since 1600, 113 species of birds and 83 species of mammals are known to have gone extinct. Most common: habitat destruction (cause by pollution and others) Generally: agriculture > city development > natural resource extraction. Agriculture has the biggest impact, with city development as second.
