Ecosystems and Extinctions

jonathan tomkin, ph.D. University of Illinois.

Dodo

Now that weve looked at sheries, lets take a general example of a more general ToC threat: ecosystems and extinctions. Well discuss why humanity derives advantages from intact ecosystems later. ToC mechanisms explain many of the pressures the natural world faces...

Land-use change Introduced species Deforestation Climate change

Frank Vassen, Edward Russell, Wagner T. Cassimiro, Kaet44 / Flickr

Pre-Humanity Extinctions

Before we look at human-caused extinctions, we should put things in perspective. The Earth has never been a safe place, and the vast majority of species have already gone extinct, through natural causes. There are no dinosaurs today.

Mike Beauregard / Flickr

Extinction Events

Episodes in Earths past created many more extinctions than what humans have managed such as: asteroid impacts and massive volcanoes.

Sverrir Thorolfsson / Flickr

Five Mass Extinctions 1/2

here were ve previous mass extinctions. In this example, the vertical axis shows the percentage extinction of genera, while the horizontal axis shows time in millions of years. Genus is broader than species. So, for example, the canis genus includes domestic dogs, wolves, dingos, jackals and coyotes.

Sverrir Thorolfsson / Flickr

Five Mass Extinctions 2/2

Paleontologists characterize mass extinctions as times when the Earth loses more than three-quarters of its species in a geologically short interval. This has happened only ve times in the past 540million years or so.

Prehistory Extinctions

xtinctions are not just a modern problem. Humans have been a threat since we came into existence. Not just dodos. Every time a major new land mass was colonized by humans the local ecosystem was altered and species were made extinct. Our technology transforms us. Not just modern technology, but technology such as spears, bow and arrows, re, agriculture, etc. On the left, is an example of extinct animals from Australias prehistory giant birds, wombats, kangaroos, and a marsupial lion. However, some say it was climate change that wiped them out.

Nobu Tamura / Flickr

Arrival of Homo Sapiens is bad for the locals

As people migrated out of Africa, the fossil record suggests that native animals suffered especially large mammals. Look at Australia for example. Shortly after humankind arrived on the continent, most of the large mammals became extinct around 90% were wiped out.

Thylacine
The Thylacine or Tasmanian Tiger went extinct in 1936.

Hunters

What about people? This was all caused far before humans evolved. Of course, modern humans have caused extinctions too. So where are we now? Are we in a 6th extinction?

Its very difcult to tell. Creatures naturally go extinct, and we dont know exactly how many different species there are on the planet. Nonetheless, we have a pretty good handle on mammals though, so can use that as an example. Mammals, have an average species lifespan from origination to extinction of about 1 million years. .

6th extinction?

The current extinction rate is between 1,000 and 10,000 times higher than the natural rate. (International Union for Conservation of Nature, IUCN)

Deforestation 1/2

hen an individual clears forest or other habitat for agriculture or human needs, there is a private benet. But the loss of collective ecosystems effects everyone. So development can lead to extinction it is too much for any individual to stop. Its been happening for a long time...

Deforestation 2/2
...and we havent made as much progress as you might hope.

Brazil, 2011

Current world forests

NASA

Forest Trends

orests are growing back, but as this graph shows, not in the tropics. Between 1990 and 2005 the loss of forests was highest in the tropics, where just under half of the worlds forests are located. Net losses in this region averaged 6.9 million hectares per year between 1990 and 2005. Net loss, in which losses of forest cover are partially offset by afforestation or natural expansion, totaled 72.9 million hectares. Well look at why functioning natural ecosystems are good for humans in a later week.
United Nations

Back to the Dodo

This brings us back to the dodo. It was a good bird to eat, so sailors had an incentive not to destroy the species. But for individual ships, the personal gain of taking as much meat as possible outweighed the help for other, future sailors let alone the dodo itself.

So what about climate change - will that herald the 6th extinction? We already see habitat change, but what might the world look like in 2100?