Rarity in mass extinctions and the future of ecosystems

Pincelli M. Hull (), Simon A. F. Darroch and Douglas H. Erwin
Additional contact information
Pincelli M. Hull: Yale University
Simon A. F. Darroch: National Museum of Natural History
Douglas H. Erwin: National Museum of Natural History

Nature, 2015, vol. 528, issue 7582, 345-351

Abstract: Abstract The fossil record provides striking case studies of biodiversity loss and global ecosystem upheaval. Because of this, many studies have sought to assess the magnitude of the current biodiversity crisis relative to past crises—a task greatly complicated by the need to extrapolate extinction rates. Here we challenge this approach by showing that the rarity of previously abundant taxa may be more important than extinction in the cascade of events leading to global changes in the biosphere. Mass rarity may provide the most robust measure of our current biodiversity crisis relative to those past, and new insights into the dynamics of mass extinction.

Date: 2015
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature16160 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:528:y:2015:i:7582:d:10.1038_nature16160

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/nature16160

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().