Living on borrowed time—Study of extinction rates following habitat loss offers hope that some spec…

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://unews.utah.edu/embargoed-living-on-borrowed-time/

[font face=Serif][font size=5]Living on borrowed time[/font]
[font size=4]Study of extinction rates following habitat loss offers hope that some species can be saved[/font]

Jul 25, 2016

[font size=3]Unfortunately, loss of plant and animal habitat leads to local species extinctions and a loss of diversity from ecosystems. Fortunately, not all of the extinctions occur at once. Conservation actions may still be able to save threatened species, according to William Newmark, a vertebrate zoologist at the Natural History Museum of Utah at the University of Utah.

In the study, published today in Nature Communications, Newmark and colleagues complied data from biodiversity and extinction reports, finding that patterns of species loss following habitat disruption are similar among birds, mammals, plants, reptiles and invertebrates. Newmark and colleagues also found that while species loss commences quickly, timely action could slow extinction rates and save species.

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When natural habitats are lost, species lose the physical space and resources they need to continue growing and expanding. Habitats are usually lost due to human activity, such as building roads or clear-cutting a forest. After such a disturbance, the habitat can no longer support the number of species that live there and species begin to disappear until the habitat reaches a new normal. The difference between the old and new amounts of biodiversity the habitat can support is called the “extinction debt.”

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Newmark and his colleagues found a shallow J-shaped curve, nearly identical in each taxonomic group, that described how the rates of extinction loss change over time. At first, extinction rates are high, and then decelerate until the point at which half of the extinction debt is paid off. After that point, species loss continues but at a slower rate until a new equilibrium is reached.

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[mopinko]

1. if we build it, they will come.

there was a project here in illinois to restore wetland to a formerly channelized river. it was hotly debated, and roundly criticized.
but they barely finished the initial plantings before wading birds began to return. and they had barely flooded the area before native plants awoke from the soil seed bank.

it is now full of wildlife that many thought had gone for good.

if we build it, they will come.

AND if we take what we have learned, and do things more carefully in the future, they wont leave in the first place.

time for us to walk with a much lighter footprint.