Extinction in Biological News

New book suggests Earth perhaps not such a benevolent mother after all

... at conditions that existed during numerous mass extinction events in Earth's history. In a new book, he ... to manage their environment or face potential extinction if the Earth is left to manage itself. "The ... The evolution of the first true animals caused extinction of most stromatolites, layers of microbes living ...

Princeton geoscientist offers new evidence that meteorite did not wipe out dinosaurs

... Earth just at the boundary and caused the mass extinction of dinosaurs and many other animals. They thought ... suggest that the impact crater and the mass extinction event only appear far apart in the sedimentary ... from the sandstone complex and the overlying mass extinction were formed by normal processes. There is ...

Evidence of the 'Lost World' -- did dinosaurs survive the end Cretaceous extinctions?

... of dinosaurs that survived the catastrophic extinction event 65 million years ago, has no less appeal ... really did live after the end Cretaceous extinction event. The first step must be to demonstrate ... rocks containing the bones are younger than the extinction event. Fassett has analysed the magnetic polarity ...

April 2009 Geology and GSA Today media highlights

... cycle associated with the Late Ordovician mass extinction in South China Tonggang Zhang et al., CRC in ... Pages 299-302. The Late Ordovician mass extinction took place in the Hirnantian Stage (445.6-443.7 ... years ago) and is the second largest of all great extinction events over the past 543 million years. During ...

Study unravels why certain fishes went extinct 65 million years ago

... spelled doom for bony fishes during the last mass extinction 65 million years ago, according to a new study to ... that are currently in decline and at risk of extinction themselves, said Matt Friedman, author of the ... chains at a rudimentary level, and led to the extinction of thousands of species of flora and fauna, ...

The law of the weakest

... The extinction of species is a consequence of their inability to ... lead to fluctuations that ultimately lead to the extinction of species. We know that up to 50 species become ... the influence of man. Yet, the phenomenon of extinction of species itself cannot be avoided altogether ...

Current mass extinction spurs major study of which plants to save

... The Earth is in the midst of the sixth mass extinction of both plants and animals, with nearly 50 ... National Academy of Sciences . "The current extinction event is due to human activity, paving the ... conservation." He explained that the last mass extinction near the current level was 65 million years ago, ...

Extinction by asteroid a rarity

... published studies suggesting that the end-Permian extinction 250 million years ago happened in essence because ... group suggests a similar slow dying during the extinction 200 million years ago at the boundary of the ... two specific times that are associated with mass extinction suggests at the very least that maybe there's ...

Mass extinctions and the evolution of dinosaurs

... years ago and survived the Late Triassic mass extinction (228 million years ago), when some 35 per cent of ... It was their predecessors dying out during this extinction that allowed herbivorous dinosaurs to expand into ... did not happen until after the much bigger mass extinction some 200 million year ago, at the ...

October 2008 GEOLOGY and GSA TODAY media highlights

... the marine organisms that recovered from the extinction were housed. Trace fossils, which preserve the ... they provide evidence for refuges from ongoing extinction pressures in the immediate aftermath of latest ... storms. Within the habitable zone, latest Permian extinction levels are reduced and the recovery time is ...

September Geology and GSA Today media highlights

... GSA TODAY article studies the end-Permian mass extinction in the marine realm, examining long-term ... to the amalgamation of Pangea. Stepwise extinction of larger foraminifers at the Cenomanian-Turonian ... They were almost completely wiped out by extinction during the late Cenomanian OAE (about 94-93.5 ...

Extinction most likely for rare trees in the Amazon rainforest

... and road-building, but rare trees could suffer extinction rates of up to 50 percent, predict Smithsonian ... proponents of models that maximize and minimize extinction rates. The Amazon basin contains about 40 ... between 37 and 50 percent extinction, whereas the extinction rate for all trees could be from 20 to 33 percent ...

Dying frogs sign of a biodiversity crisis

... plant and animal species add up to a new mass extinction facing the planet. "There's no question that we are in a mass extinction spasm right now," said David Wake, professor of ... species die off all the time, but sometimes the extinction numbers far outweigh the emergence of new ....

UCSB researcher leads worldwide study on marine fossil diversity

... wisdom about the diversity of marine fossils and extinction rates. Alroy, a researcher with the National ... in the diversity of fossils after periods of extinction - especially the extinction 250 million years ago between the Permian and ...

1/3 of reef-building corals face extinction

... a group, reef-building corals are more at risk of extinction than all terrestrial groups, apart from ... first stage assessment of the threat of extinction for over 20,000 marine plants and animals, ... plans around the world, and tracking the extinction risk of marine species. The results of the ...

The mystery of mass extinctions is no longer murky

... If you are curious about Earth's periodic mass extinction events such as the sudden demise of the dinosaurs ... think there may have been as many as 23 mass extinction events, many involving simple forms of life such ... into the planet. But the causes of other mass extinction events have been murky, at best. "No matter ...

Butterfly fish 'may face extinction'

... patterned Chaetodon trifascialis - make it an extinction risk as the worlds coral reefs continue to ... butterflyfish may be at considerable risk of extinction following ongoing degradation of coral reefs ... are likely to occur as part of the global mass extinction of species now taking place, and that marine ...

Seismic images show dinosaur-killing meteor made bigger splash

... Mexico coast, may modify a theory explaining the extinction of 70 percent of life on Earth 65 million years ... agree the impact played a major role in the KT extinction Event that caused the extinction of most life on Earth, including the dinosaurs. ...

Recovering from a mass extinction

... systems, following the most devastating extinction event of all time, took at least 30 million ... years ago, at the end of the Permian, a major extinction event killed over 90 per cent of life on earth, ... not yet witnessed anything like the level of the extinction that occurred at the end of the Permian, we ...

Threatened birds may be rarer than geographic range maps suggest

... species threatened or near threatened with extinction are also subject to particularly high range ... more specialized, and are in greater danger of extinction than those in temperate areas. Jetz and Allen ... a real danger in underestimating the risks of extinction in future projections of climate change. ...

Scientists warn that species extinction could reduce productivity of plants on Earth by half

... around the world that simulated plant species extinction and showed that ecosystems with fewer species ... even further. They said that species extinction is one of the most pronounced environmental ... that the Earth is in the middle of the sixth mass extinction in the history of life. Some estimates suggest ...

Frog study takes leaf out of nature's book

... A brightly coloured tropical frog under threat of extinction is the focus of a new research project hoping to ... the splendid leaf frog Cruziohyla calcarifer from extinction in the wild but provide clues as to how it can be ... 6,000 amphibian species are threatened with extinction and more than 120 species have already vanished ...

Meteor no longer prime suspect in great extinction

... The greatest mass extinction in Earths history also may have been one of the ... and Bottjer, support a model that attributes the extinction to enormous volcanic eruptions that released ... deadly sequence repeated itself for another major extinction 200 million years ago, at the end of the ...

Fossil record supports evidence of impending mass extinction

... for the coming centuries may trigger a new mass extinction event, where over 50 per cent of animal and plant ... greenhouse phases that are associated with mass extinction events identified in the fossil record. The ... extinctions will increase. Of the five mass extinction events(1), four - including the one that ...

Role reversal as humans suck life out of leeches

... Global warming may be to blame for the gradual extinction of cold-loving species, and the European land ... Graz region of Austria may have led to the near extinction of the local land leech Xerobdella lecomtei. The ... warming may have led to the almost complete extinction of the local population of this rare annelid. ...

When bivalves ruled the world

... Before the worst mass extinction of life in Earths history 252 million years ago ... invertebrates tell scientists about surviving an extinction event" A lot, says UWM paleoecologist Margaret ... of surviving species in the aftermath of the mass extinction set the stage for dinosaurs to evolve later in ...

August 2009 Geology and GSA Today media highlights

... 65 million years ago. The impact may have been responsible for the great extinction event that occurred at the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary, including the extinction of dinosaurs. Although a several-kilometer-thick cover of sedimentary ...

Sex in the Caribbean: Environmental change drives evolutionary change -- eventually

... they disappeared from the geological record," said Jackson. "The idea that extinction may be delayed by millions of years after the cause is worrisome. Today an ... record is that even if they survive now, the ultimate cause of their extinction may already have passed us by." This report appears in the Proceedings ...

Surviving mass extinction by leading a double life

... remarkable evidence that planktonic foraminifera may have survived mass extinction by taking refuge on the sea floor. Dr Chris Wade from the Institute of ... that most planktic foraminifers may have survived the late Cretaceous extinction in the sediment, not in the plankton. It seems likely that the foraminifer ...

Jeepers creepers: Climate change threatens endangered honeycreepers

... survivors. Today, native Hawaiian birds face one of the highest rates of extinction in the world. Of 41 honeycreeper species and subspecies known since ... "Without question, the one factor that prevented widespread and rapid extinction of virtually all of Hawaii's native honeycreepers after the introduction ...

The genetics of fear: Study suggests specific genetic variations contribute to anxiety disorders

... variation in the gene coding for the COMT enzyme was associated with fear extinction - volunteers with this particular variant were able to very quickly ... that fear by common cognitive behavioral treatments which are based on the extinction principle. ...

Mammals that hibernate or burrow less likely to go extinct

... The pattern holds even under controls for other traits that may influence extinction rates, such as body size (smaller animals generally have lower extinction rates) and geographic distribution. Despite these results, sleepers and ...

Dramatic expansion of dead zones in the oceans

... the west coasts of the continents like off Oregon and Chile". Large extinction events Together with senior scientists Steffen Olsen oceanographer ... anoxia are thought to be prime candidates for explaining some of the large extinction events in Earth history including the largest such event at the end of the ...

Rare corals breed their way out of trouble

... species. It is often assumed that rare coral species face higher risks of extinction than common species because they have very small effective population ... but what is evident is that rare corals previously thought vulnerable to extinction may have more ability to adapt than initally expected" she explains. ...

Geologist who linked cosmic strike to dinosaurs' extinction takes top prize

... in terms of gradual processes, and a stock explanation for dinosaurs' extinction was slowly changing climate. In the mid-1970s, Alvarez was a young field ... had existed for eons suddenly disappeared. The seemingly instant extinction dated to 65 million yearsaround the time dinosaurs died out. Together with ...

New hope for the red squirrel

... immune to squirrelpox viral disease, which many believed would lead to the extinction of the species, scientists have discovered. Scientists led by the ... is the first sign of hope in the long struggle to save the species from extinction in the UK." The red squirrel (Sciurus vulgaris) is a European rodent ...

Global warming threatens Australia's iconic kangaroos

... has the capacity to cause large-scale range contractions, and the possible extinction of one macropodid (kangaroo) species in northern Australia," write study ... may shrink its range by 89 percent. A six-degree increase may lead to the extinction of antilopine wallaroos if they are unable to adapt to the arid grassland ...

Smithsonian perspective: Biodiversity in a warmer world

... in temperature threatens 53 percent of the area's species with lowland extinction and 51 percent with range shift gaps, meaning that they have nowhere else ... own studies from the tropics and temperate areas where other drivers of extinction are at work. They call for more discoveries of the sort that often result ...

Fishy future written in the genes

... are long-established and which seem to come and go in a pattern of local extinction and re-colonisation. By studying the mitochondrial DNA of spiny ... population fluctuations. This suggests they undergo cycles of local extinction and re-settlement, which are nothing to do with human activity whereas ...

Study of islands reveals surprising extinction results

... National Academy of Sciences , sheds surprising light on the subject of extinction rates of species on islands. The paper, "Species Invasions and Extinction: ... limits in how many species an ecosystem can hold? Are we building an extinction debt? "Which means," Gaines said, "that by going in and mucking up the ...