Climate Change & Anthropocene Extinction 17: These 6 killers still bigger drivers than warming – IUCN study

An analysis of IUCN’s Red List of endangered species places 10 drivers of the Holocene-Anthropocene Mass Extinction in order of severity. It concludes that classical environmental threats like deforestation, hunting and overfishing – in 2016 – still top the list … Continue reading

Climate Change & Anthropocene Extinction 14: Vertebrates in general decline, mass extinction underestimated

Whether you focus on mammals, birds, reptiles or amphibians – land vertebrates are in rapid decline everywhere around us, illustrating a general decline of Life on Earth – and a prelude to the Holocene-Anthropocene Mass Extinction, that is being underestimated … Continue reading

Climate Change & Holocene-Anthropocene Mass Extinction 3: Biodiversity is function of time and plate tectonics

Here’s just a quick supplement on yesterday’s article, showing Earth’s historical biodiversity graph correlates with different phases of plate tectonics.

Climate Change & Holocene-Anthropocene Mass Extinction 2: Biodiversity graph shows Garden of Eden is Now

Yesterday we tried to place the Holocene-Anthropocene Mass Extinction in the context of Earth’s past mass extinctions. Listing the Holocene Extinction as the ‘Sixth Mass Extinction’ proves problematic for various reasons. Today we offer additional context: although a mass extinction … Continue reading

Climate Change & Holocene-Anthropocene Mass Extinction 1: First of all, what are we talking about?

Yes, you’ve guessed it: a new series – and one we think is (even) more important than the previous climate series on Bits of Science, like our short (ongoing) understanding sea level rise series, and the more elaborate series about … Continue reading

Laying eggs was dinosaurs’ first step to extinction

Their reproductive strategy spelled the beginning of the end: The fact that dinosaurs laid eggs put them at a considerable disadvantage compared to viviparous mammals. Together with colleagues from the Zoological Society of London, Daryl Codron and Marcus Clauss from the University of Zurich investigated and published why and how this ultimately led to the extinction of the dinosaurs in the journal Biology Letters.

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Late Ordovician mass extinction caused by tropical cooling and habitat loss

The second-largest mass extinction in Earth’s history coincided with a short but intense ice age during which enormous glaciers grew and sea levels dropped. Although it has long been agreed that the so-called Late Ordovician mass extinction — which occurred about 450 million years ago — was related to climate change, exactly how the climate change produced the extinction has not been known. Now, a team led by scientists at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) has created a framework for weighing the factors that might have led to mass extinction and has used that framework to determine that the majority of extinctions were caused by habitat loss due to falling sea levels and cooling of the tropical oceans.

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Mercury: a new culprit in end-Permian mass extinction event

Volcanic eruptions have already been appointed as the main culprit of the Permian-Triassic mass extinction. Previous research indicated that the resulting rise in atmospheric and oceanic carbon lead to the Great dying. But new findings in the journal Geology point to a … Continue reading