“This is an extremely impactful study, spanning the globe and all vertebrate groups and insects,” Godley told CNN.

The action is of course nonstop and over the top, as readers have come to expect and enjoy from Rollins, while the science is startling and fascinating. Portland Book Review on THE 6TH EXTINCTION. Using population data across a wide range of animal groups, including those where data is lacking, is a less robust measure than the IUCN’s Red List criteria “which look at the trends of species over much longer time frames,” he told CNN.īut Brendan Godley, a professor of conservation science at the University of Exeter who was not involved in the study, said the research offers novel insights into population trends. The 6th Extinction is relentlessly exciting and thought provoking. The sixth extinction is likely to be mankinds most lasting legacy and Elizabeth Kolberts book urgently compels us to rethink the fundamental question of. Elizabeth Kolbert combines brilliant field reporting. Scientists around the world are currently monitoring the sixth, predicted to be the most devastating extinction event since the asteroid impact that wiped out the dinosaurs. “While we agree with the sentiments and concerns about the declines in species that this paper expresses (as it is fundamentally an analysis of IUCN Red List data), we think that the results over-inflate the situation,” said Craig Hilton-Taylor, head of the IUCN Red List. : Over the last half a billion years, there have been five mass extinctions of life on earth. One reason for that is that “animals in the tropics are more sensitive to rapid changes in their environmental temperatures,” Pincheira-Donoso said. A major book about the future of the world, blending intellectual and natural history and field reporting into a powerful account of the mass extinction unfolding before our eyes Over the last half-billion years, there have been Five mass extinctions, when the diversity of life on earth suddenly and dramatically contracted. Geographically, declines tend to be concentrated in the tropics, the report found.

It was better news for fish and reptiles, with more species appearing to have stable, rather than declining, populations. Mammals, birds and insects are all seeing species declines, but amphibians have been particularly badly affected overall, the report found, and are facing a multitude of threats, including disease and climate change.

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