6 ms·

What the hell is an extinction vortex? The article refuses to define it, despite scare-quoting the term itself.. >“Individual lions face horrible deaths from c

by setr 7y ago

What the hell is an extinction vortex? The article refuses to define it, despite scare-quoting the term itself.. >“Individual lions face horrible deaths from car collisions or rat poison, while their populations become increasingly isolated and inbred in ever-shrinking islands of habitat hemmed by freeways and sprawl.” Is this it? It doesn't really fit the name that well..

MrDunham 7y ago
Related headline: Journalist uses 'dubious tactics' in headline to 'clickfarm' population. I'm truly tired of this media tactic to create/hijack curiosity (IE "wtf is a 'polar vortex'") and/or scare quotes to generate page views.
- PhasmaFelis 7y ago
  "Extinction vortex" and "polar vortex" are both well-defined scientific terms. The media could stand to define them better, but they're generally used correctly.
ceejayoz 7y ago
I took it as a scary-sounding version of "downward spiral".
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
uniformlyrandom 7y ago
Second paragraph defines it: > Mountain lions as a species are not threatened in California, but a petition submitted Tuesday to the state Fish and Game Commission argues that six isolated and genetically distinct cougar clans from Santa Cruz to the U.S.-Mexico border comprise a subpopulation that is threatened by extinction. I understand it lacks the 'We define extinction vortex as...' preamble, but you can easily infer it.
- wycy 7y ago
  But how is "threatened by extinction" an "extinction vortex"?
  - SolaceQuantum 7y ago
    When a population is isolated or bottlenecked, there reaches an event horizon where inbreeding causes too manty defects for the population to survive even if one were to curb outside predation/killing. The article points several times to the increasing isolation of the populations and the threats that giving them protected status would require development to take isolation of population in care when developing.
    - wycy 7y ago
      That still just sounds like regular extinction to me. "Event horizon" or some other "cliff" type of nomenclature is fair too in light of the inbreeding effect of very small populations. But "extinction vortex" sounds like they wanted to pick a scary sounding word for hype. For "vortex" to actually be fitting I'd expect some kind of circular process: perhaps a feedback loop, wherein some process is causing extinction which increasingly leads to more extinction. Like how melting ice leads to warming, which leads to more melting ice, etc, might be fair to call a "warming vortex".
      - iron0013 7y ago
        If only semantics could prevent animals from going extinct.
      - smallnamespace 7y ago
        If you look at the Wikipedia article, the term 'extinction vortex' has been used since the mid-80s. It might interest you to know that there is an analogy between black holes and vortexes, as the latter are used as physical models of the former: https://www.nature.com/articles/nphys4151#affil-auth https://www.nature.com/articles/nphys4151#affil-auth
      - 7y ago
sehugg 7y ago
I found this WWW page with the Google: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction_vortex https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction_vortex It's a boundary below which specific feedback mechanisms accelerate extinction, fragmentation of populations being one condition.

by setr 7y ago

MrDunham 7y ago

Related headline: Journalist uses 'dubious tactics' in headline to 'clickfarm' population. I'm truly tired of this media tactic to create/hijack curiosity (IE "wtf is a 'polar vortex'") and/or scare quotes to generate page views.

PhasmaFelis 7y ago
"Extinction vortex" and "polar vortex" are both well-defined scientific terms. The media could stand to define them better, but they're generally used correctly.

ceejayoz 7y ago

I took it as a scary-sounding version of "downward spiral".

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

uniformlyrandom 7y ago

Second paragraph defines it: > Mountain lions as a species are not threatened in California, but a petition submitted Tuesday to the state Fish and Game Commission argues that six isolated and genetically distinct cougar clans from Santa Cruz to the U.S.-Mexico border comprise a subpopulation that is threatened by extinction. I understand it lacks the 'We define extinction vortex as...' preamble, but you can easily infer it.

wycy 7y ago
But how is "threatened by extinction" an "extinction vortex"?
- SolaceQuantum 7y ago
  When a population is isolated or bottlenecked, there reaches an event horizon where inbreeding causes too manty defects for the population to survive even if one were to curb outside predation/killing. The article points several times to the increasing isolation of the populations and the threats that giving them protected status would require development to take isolation of population in care when developing.
  - wycy 7y ago
    That still just sounds like regular extinction to me. "Event horizon" or some other "cliff" type of nomenclature is fair too in light of the inbreeding effect of very small populations. But "extinction vortex" sounds like they wanted to pick a scary sounding word for hype. For "vortex" to actually be fitting I'd expect some kind of circular process: perhaps a feedback loop, wherein some process is causing extinction which increasingly leads to more extinction. Like how melting ice leads to warming, which leads to more melting ice, etc, might be fair to call a "warming vortex".
    - iron0013 7y ago
      If only semantics could prevent animals from going extinct.
    - smallnamespace 7y ago
      If you look at the Wikipedia article, the term 'extinction vortex' has been used since the mid-80s. It might interest you to know that there is an analogy between black holes and vortexes, as the latter are used as physical models of the former: https://www.nature.com/articles/nphys4151#affil-auth https://www.nature.com/articles/nphys4151#affil-auth
    - 7y ago

sehugg 7y ago

I found this WWW page with the Google: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction_vortex https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction_vortex It's a boundary below which specific feedback mechanisms accelerate extinction, fragmentation of populations being one condition.