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The article says, "the project looked at more than 330,000 species...." and "...seed-bearing plants have been disappearing at a rate of nearly 3 species a year
by laydn 7y ago
The article says, "the project looked at more than 330,000 species...." and "...seed-bearing plants have been disappearing at a rate of nearly 3 species a year since 1900 ― which is up to 500 times higher".
So since 1900, that's 357 species disappearing, out of 330,000 (~0.1%)
How did they arrive at the conclusion that this is an "alarming rate"? Also, "up to 500 times higher" means, the expected rate is less than 1 plant going extinct out of 330,000 species, which sounds way too good to be true.
- hnthrowaway2847 7y agoSpeciation is likely a slow process and 100 years is not a long time on an evolutionary time frame, so without any numbers backing me up 1 extinction per 100 years background extinction rate without a major event seems reasonable.
- nielsbot 7y ago> which sounds way too good to be true Based on what?
- AnimalMuppet 7y agoBased on what I'd expect the rate to be. I'd expect the rate to be much higher. Why would I expect that? Because of all the "sky is falling" rhetoric. I don't expect that to mean the sky is falling over the next 10,000 years; I expect it to mean that the sky is falling now. [Edit: Note that I am not saying that this is good news - just that it is considerably less bad than I expected.]
- mirimir 7y agoThe "next 10,000 years" is "now", from an evolutionary perspective.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago10 000 years is also 2x more than entire recorded history, and about the time since humans stopped being subject to biological evolution as the main driver of development. 10 000 years is a lot of time. Compared to other climate issues, with consequences expected in decades, this deserves at best a "cool, we'll fix that in a century or two, if technological civilization still exists by that time".
- mirimir 7y agoMaybe so. But it's a gamble. If species that we depend on go, such as pollinators, we'll be SOL. On the other hand, I do agree with your practical assessment: > "cool, we'll fix that in a century or two, if technological civilization still exists by that time". Because, if for no other reason, it probably won't. And there's also the fact that it's a human impact that can't likely be mitigated in any other way than collapse of the human population.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- jniedrauer 7y ago> Also, "up to 500 times higher" means, the expected rate is less than 1 plant going extinct out of 330,000 species, which sounds way too good to be true. Speciation does not occur in human timespans. If 3 species of seed bearing plants out of 330,000 went extinct per year, we could expect to live on a barren planet within 110,000 years. This is a very rapid rate, given that plant life has existed for 5,000 times longer than that.
- radicalbyte 7y agoWe literally breed new subtypes of plants, constantly, to improve our food crops. Those are new species being created within a human life span.
- jniedrauer 7y agoThis seems disingenuous. Genetically modified organisms created in a lab have no bearing on the proliferation of biodiversity outside the lab.
- mirimir 7y agoI wouldn't say "no bearing". But if current trends continued, there wouldn't be much left except people, livestock, pets, crop plants (including trees), insect pests, and microorganisms. And stuff in zoos and botanical gardens. However, that's unlikely. Well before that, human society and population will likely collapse, due to climate change.
- Thev00d00 7y agoI think he was referring to boring old selective breeding
- TeMPOraL 7y agoGP likely isn't talking about lab-grown experimental GMOs, but regular farming. Many if not most of the food we eat is completely unlike it was before humans invented agriculture.
- 7y ago
- EB66 7y ago> How did they arrive at the conclusion that this is an "alarming rate"? It's a subjective description of a factual conclusion of the study. Extinction rates that are "500 times faster than they would naturally [be]" are certainly alarming to me as well.
- onion2k 7y agowhich sounds way too good to be true Why do you think that sounds too good to be true? Why would a species become extinct naturally? Nature seems pretty good at maintaining a species once its evolved to be viable. Obviously things do die out naturally, but to me (a non-botanist) it seems like something that would be very unusual without external factors (eg meteorites, global floods, climate change..)
- laydn 7y agoWhat do you mean? Plants compete for resources (water, sunlight, soil nutrients) as well. Also, there are diseases that can target specific plants, when unchecked, can wipe out an entire plant population (see Panama disease for bananas for an example)
- sunshinelackof 7y ago> see Panama disease for bananas for an example Extinction level blights similar to these are not often found in the natural world. They're only a thing because we (humans) eliminated genetic diversity from crops through grafts and clones. If the plants reproduced naturally its likely that a range of genetically diverse children would have been resistant to the fungus.
- agumonkey 7y agomaybe fear of non linear growth ?