Defaunation in the Anthropocene
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Undergraduate course
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Amer Assoc Advancement Science
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Article
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Abstract
We live amid a global wave of anthropogenically driven biodiversity loss: species and population extirpations and, critically, declines in local species abundance. Particularly, human impacts on animal biodiversity are an under-recognized form of global environmental change. Among terrestrial vertebrates, 322 species have become extinct since 1500, and populations of the remaining species show 25% average decline in abundance. Invertebrate patterns are equally dire: 67% of monitored populations show 45% mean abundance decline. Such animal declines will cascade onto ecosystem functioning and human well-being. Much remains unknown about this “Anthropocene defaunation”; these knowledge gaps hinder our capacity to predict and limit defaunation impacts. Clearly, however, defaunation is both a pervasive component of the planet’s sixth mass extinction and also a major driver of global ecological change.
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Keywords
Decomposition, Defaunation, Ecosystem, Environmental aspects and related phenomena, Environmental change, Environmental impact, Extinct species
Language
English
Citation
Science. Washington: Amer Assoc Advancement Science, v. 345, n. 6195, p. 401-406, 2014.
