Squirrels' evolutionary 'family tree' reveals major influence of climate, geology
...ooling and climatic fluctuation, and also a lot of extinctions in other animal groups. Big things were happening environmentally."The first evidence for squirrels in Europe dates to about 30 million years ago, though the researchers are not sure how they got there, she said. However fossil evidence provides a cl...Anthropologist pleads for fewer humans, more saved species
...ally put a number to how many extinctions are occurring worldwide and tie it to the impact of human populations." Part of the problem, he believes, is our short-term orientation. "Human b......and will enable us to act quickly to avoid further extinctions and ensure sustainable populations of wild species." In Indonesia, for example, the Sulawesi forest turtle is already critically endangered after only being known to science for less than 10 years. The belief that soup and jelly made from the attract...Monogamous animals may be more likely to die out
...f risk factors for extinction are based on natural extinctions through the ages but other risk factors may be at...sk factors for modern extinctions, he analyzed the extinctions and persistences of large mammals in six reserves in the savannas of Ghana, where the mammals have b...Habitat loss and reserve network selection
...s occurs at the surrounding of such reserves local extinctions may be commonplace. In the forthcoming issue of Ecology Letters, Cabeza addresses this problem with a novel approach that integrates habitat modelling and spatial population dynamics in reserve-network design. The method incorporates the quantitativ...Modern global warming more damaging than in the past
...vement of species, which has prevented large-scale extinctions in the past, is not likely to operate effectively in the modern world, he said. Today, human activity has reduced previously continuous ecosystems to small fragments of natural habitat. As a result, it is becoming increasingly difficult for species t...More than 700 threatened species remain completely unprotected, new study shows
...ted area system, scientists expect a major wave of extinctions within the next few decades. The "global gap analysis" provides an overview of how well the world's species are covered by the global network of protected areas. The study was released by the Center for Applied Biodiversity Science (CABS) at Conserva...New medicines at risk from biodiversity loss
... People threaten 97% of Philippine coral reefs and extinctions are inevitable if impacts are not alleviated soon. Habitat loss and escalating, uncontrolled exploitation make a lethal combination that today threatens with extinction cone snails and many other species of biomedical interest. "International markets...Ultra-low oxygen could have triggered die-offs, spurred bird breathing system
...ense volcanic activity are likely culprits in mass extinctions that occurred about 250 million years ago, at the boundary between the Permian and Triassic periods, and about 200 million years ago, at the boundary between the Triassic and Jurassic periods. The Permian-Triassic extinction is believed to have erad...New evidence says Earths greatest extinction caused by ancient meteorite
...low in Siberia dated precisely to that greatest of extinctions 251 million years ago. The lava did not shoot out ...ct the exact scenarios of how the two largest mass extinctions in history were caused by meteorite collisions. Along with Basu and Poreda, the co-authors of the pa...Study finds evidence for global methane release about 600 million years ago
...es are increasingly thought to play a role in mass extinctions associated with significant climate change in the Earth's history, and they are a large and exceedingly unstable source of greenhouse gas, greater than the equivalent of instantaneously burning all the oil reserves on Earth. "Linking these dramatic ...Climate change may threaten more than one million species with extinction
...e scientists believe there is a high likelihood of extinctions due to climate change in other regions, as well. ...mate change is the most significant new threat for extinctions this century," said co-author Lee Hannah, Climate Change Biology Senior Fellow at the Center for App...New evidence suggests that monkey thought extinct still exists
...xtinction may represent the beginning of a wave of extinctions which will make their way across this part of Africa," McGraw said. "There could be a cascade of disappearances, including all of those animals that are dependent on high-canopy forests. "Since there's very little canopy area left, this list could in...Century may bring unprecedented climate change to southern hemisphere
...ing hundreds or even thousands of plant and animal extinctions to the Andes Mountains of Peru according to new research by Florida Institute of Technology Paleo-Ecologist Mark Bush. Bush's findings, chronicled in the Feb. 6 issue of the prestigious journal Science , result from the study of the first continuous...Comets spread Earth-life around galaxy, say scientists
... Earth could cause ecological disasters, including extinctions of species and climate change, they could also disperse Earth-life to the most distant parts of the Galaxy. The "splash-back" from a large comet impact could throw material containing micro-organisms out of the planet's atmosphere, suggest scientists......er the similar biological signatures at these mass extinctions reflect similar causal mechanisms....Plant, bird and butterfly species dwindling in the United Kingdom, researchers report
... a mass extinction on par with the other five mass extinctions that have punctuated the history of life. Until no...nal disappearances for some species to nation-wide extinctions for a few others. Overall, these insects have disappeared from 13 percent, on average, of areas they...Pollution history documented through shell remains provides tool to study ecosystem change
... Colonial Heights, Va., decided to study the local extinctions of these creatures, some of which have been known to live 200 years and many of which are endangered species, she didn't want to have to use the traditional means of pulverizing them to measure chemical uptake. At the joint meeting of the Northeast...Report in BioScience details global decline of nonmarine mollusks
...s honor of having the highest number of documented extinctions of any major taxonomic group. A staggering 42% of the 693 recorded extinctions of all animal species since the year 1500 are mollusks (260 gastropods and 31 bivalves). Regrettab...More than 300 critically endangered species completely unprotected, new study shows
... planning is required to avoid large-scale species extinctions over the next few decades. The prevailing strategy for global conservation, forged at the 1992 World Parks Congress, calls for protection for 10 percent of every major biome by the year 2000. But even though more than 10 percent of the Earth's land s...