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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 Commis

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
    - PhasmaFelis 7y ago
      > 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. That is indeed what it means. Per Wikipedia: "[The extinction vortex model] shows the events that ultimately lead small populations to become increasingly more vulnerable as they spiral toward extinction."
  - setr 7y ago
    The article itself admits the unusualness of the term (unusual to the expected audience, anyways), by wrapping it in scare quotes. The article fails to directly define the term, and the indirect definitions do not point to anything that might constitute a “vortex”: >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. Which only implies the vortex, or feedback loop, if you already know the term and meaning, but the article does not expect you to know it..! Isolation alone hardly reads as an evolutionary feedback loop... unless you already know that isolation creates an evolutionary feedback loop

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
  - PhasmaFelis 7y ago
    > 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. That is indeed what it means. Per Wikipedia: "[The extinction vortex model] shows the events that ultimately lead small populations to become increasingly more vulnerable as they spiral toward extinction."
- setr 7y ago
  The article itself admits the unusualness of the term (unusual to the expected audience, anyways), by wrapping it in scare quotes. The article fails to directly define the term, and the indirect definitions do not point to anything that might constitute a “vortex”: >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. Which only implies the vortex, or feedback loop, if you already know the term and meaning, but the article does not expect you to know it..! Isolation alone hardly reads as an evolutionary feedback loop... unless you already know that isolation creates an evolutionary feedback loop