14 DAY TRIAL // According to a recent investigation whose findings are detailed in a paper in the journal Conservation Biology, plant and animal species are now disappearing at a rate about 1,000 times higher than the one documented before humans emerged as a species.
Hence, it can only be concluded that people are the ones to blame for this unprecedented extinction rate in our planet's history, researchers with Brown University in the US explain.
In their paper in the journal Conservation Biology, the Brown University specialists behind this research project explain that, according to evidence at hand, the so-called normal rate of extinction is one of 0.1 disappearances per million species per year.
By comparison, the current rate of extinction is one of 100 disappearances per million species per year. This means that our planet's biodiversity is not just dwindling, but declining at a rapid pace. This can spell doom for land and aquatic ecosystems worldwide.
“It was very, very different before humans entered the scene,” researcher Jurriaan de Vos commented on the outcome of this investigation. “This reinforces the urgency to conserve what is left and try to reduce our impacts,” the Brown University researcher added.
As part of this investigation into how the emergence of humans as a self-standing species has influenced the global extinction rate over the years, scientists compiled and analyzed data concerning Earth's biodiversity since the first organisms appeared until present day.
The researchers did not settle for simply studying fossil records. They also focused on genetics, meaning that they looked at the evolutionary family trees of both plant and animal species. This allowed them to determine how various groups of animals diversified over time.
Specifically, the scientists were able to figure out which genetic lineages emerged and which were lost as our planet's biodiversity continued to change. This information made it possible for them to determine past and present global extinction rates.
Data obtained in this manner indicates that, were it not for humans, the global extinction rate would be one of 0.1 disappearances per million species per year. Since this is not the case, the specialists were left with no choice but conclude that people are toying with the planet's biodiversity to a greater extent than previously assumed.
As specialist Stuart Pimm put it, “This new study comes up with a better estimate of the normal background rate – how fast species would go extinct were it not for human actions. It's lower than we thought, meaning that the current extinction crisis is much worse by comparison.”