Mass Extinctions Are Accelerating, Scientists Report - The New York Times

Mass Extinctions Are Accelerating, Scientists Report - The New York Times

More than 500 vertebrates ‘on the brink’

The rate of loss of biodiversity is faster than previously estimated, with 515 species of vertebrates now counting fewer than 1,000 members. Some 543 vertebrate species have already been lost in the past century, a rate 100 times faster than what occurs naturally. “In other words, every year over the last century we lost the same number of species typically lost in 100 years,” says ecologist Gerardo Ceballos. Scientists have warned that climate change and other major disruptions — such as habitat loss and deforestation — could be causing Earth’s first mass extinction since the one in which non-avian dinosaurs disappeared 66 million years ago.

New York Times | 5 min readSource: PNAS paper