One-Third of Tropical African Plant Species at Risk of Extinction (sciencemag.org) 43
A third of plant species in tropical Africa are threatened with extinction, a new study suggests. Plants are crucial to many ecosystems and life in general, providing food and oxygen, as well as being the source of myriad materials and medicines. However, human activities including logging, mining and agriculture pose a major threat. From a report: While the extinction risk of animals around the world has been well studied, the risk facing many plants remains unclear: 86% of mammal species have been assessed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) for its Red List, compared with only 8% of plant species. Now experts say they have come up with a rapid approach to give a preliminary classification. "Our approach can help to prioritise either species or regions on which proper IUCN Red Listing should focus," said Dr Gilles Dauby of the French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development and a co-author of the research.
He said the list was recognised as an authoritative source, and was crucial to planning projects that could affect the environment. The new study is the latest to throw the plight of plants into the spotlight. Earlier this year, scientists completed the most thorough analysis to date of plant extinctions, finding that 571 species had been wiped out since the start of the industrial revolution -- a figure they say is likely to be an underestimate. Writing in the journal Science Advances, Dauby and colleagues report how they focused on two IUCN Red List criteria -- one relating to population size reduction and the other to habitat decline -- to develop a computer algorithm to automatically classify the conservation status of plants.
He said the list was recognised as an authoritative source, and was crucial to planning projects that could affect the environment. The new study is the latest to throw the plight of plants into the spotlight. Earlier this year, scientists completed the most thorough analysis to date of plant extinctions, finding that 571 species had been wiped out since the start of the industrial revolution -- a figure they say is likely to be an underestimate. Writing in the journal Science Advances, Dauby and colleagues report how they focused on two IUCN Red List criteria -- one relating to population size reduction and the other to habitat decline -- to develop a computer algorithm to automatically classify the conservation status of plants.
Re: Then leave (Score:2)
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Interest level (Score:3)
One tenth of Americans at risk of being interested.
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All Species are at risk. Its called evolution.
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Re:Interest level (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Interest level (Score:4, Insightful)
To add to that, species can take thousands to millions of years to evolve. Every extinction is a huge loss in those terms.
Rather than feeding the constant argument of whether climate change is real or who/what caused it, why don't we focus on reducing pollution? Surely nobody can argue that the pollution we see in our environment is a natural cycle. Fix pollution and that will go a long way to helping the climate, plants, and wildlife at the same time. Not to mention the promise of breathable air for our grandchildren.
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Okay, subjectively and personally speaking, you mean. Science provides no reason why a particular organism needs to be spared how evolution works all the time.
So, I'll just equally assert it's no actual loss at all.
Or, alternately, "What does that even mean?"
A grouping of permutations of DNA no longer exists, a grouping just arbitrarily declared to be "a species" (see "Species Problem"). Does that make it worse than a certain kind of rock formation e
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Rather than feeding the constant argument of whether climate change is real or who/what caused it, why don't we focus on reducing pollution? Surely nobody can argue that the pollution we see in our environment is a natural cycle.
That argument is worthless. "Natural" is irrelevant. "Cycle" is undesirable if it causes us problems. Many people don't believe it's worth reducing pollution if it inconveniences them, unless there is some catastrophic end result to not reducing it. In order to focus on reducing pollution, it is necessary either to convince those people that catastrophe is imminent, or to fundamentally change their entire view on what is desirable and good.
We are experiencing a kind of soft war between those who want to pro
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Until we reconstruct it from DNA. If we can do so with woolly mammoths, we can do so with other organisms.
Unless there's no reason to, which there probably won't be any reason in the general case. When we recognize that one species being lost is another species' gain, and that's how evolution works, and to be a naturalist fighting evolution is in the realm of bizarre whole existence self-contradiction.
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But that's not how it works.
This is not about fighting evolution, this is about concern that humans are causing a mass extinction. And in case you didn't notice, mass extinction is not synonomous with evolution.
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But that's not how it works.
Except, that's exactly how it works.
There are, and have been, finite natural resources. Competition for those resources have caused some species to survive, and others not. Science has no basis to prefer one over the other, and that's (naturalistic) evolution.
Now, if you want to step outside of science, and suggest a basis for a preference for one species over another, you have the beginnings of an argument.
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Ask the Dinosaurs..
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Ask the Dinosaurs..
Yeah that pretty much killed evolution.
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"Biodiverse" is unfalsifiable.
The Earth is, and will remain regardless of what we do, "biodiverse". How many species are needed to be "diverse", exactly, and why do you presume some other species flourishing instead of the one that didn't, will not yield useful products itself?
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I read it as:
"WOOHOO!!! 66% of plant species are going to make it!!!"
But that's just me.
store them on Mars in the meantime (Score:1)
i mean that's what it's for, right?
We need more trees (Score:2)
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At this point it's too late for trees, We should suck it up and plant bamboo even though it's a PITA. You can build stuff from it, you can eat parts of it... And it does in a year what it takes trees a decade.
Places where even bamboo won't grow there's kudzu. Replace the CAFO beef output with kudzu goats. The environmental impact is drastically lower.
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At this point it's too late for trees
At this point it's too late for people too.
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"Replace the CAFO beef output with kudzu goats. The environmental impact is drastically lower."
THIS is actually a good idea.
Kudzu will grow basically anywhere and goats are delicious.
Win/Win, nicely done.
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We all know how much trouble kudzu can cause as an invasive species, and goats love to feed on tree seedlings, to the extent that they destroyed Crete's forests back in Classical times. Maybe goats like the taste of kudzu? Has anybody tried?
Here's Hoping They Can Figure It Out (Score:2)
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Here's hoping the leaders of the affected nations can organize an effort to curb these losses before it's too late. They should be able to pool their resources and personnel to accomplish this and find ways to discourage those whose activities harm the region.
You are forgetting the shareholders.
What about their rights to "late stage capitalism", inflated stock prices and making a killing(literally) off of environmental collapse.
The unmentionable factor (Score:1)
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Are these scientists unaware that the [unmentionable] of Africa is set to not double, not triple, but quadruple by 2100? It is a safe bet that current environment pressure will also quadruple. Without addressing the [unmentionable] , expect things to only get worse. Unfortunately we can't address [unmentionable] because [unmentionable] .
Yes, isn't it interesting that we can't talk about population, or more specifically, over-population .
Those on the right don't like to discuss it because it infringes on their religious liberties of overpopulating the Earth and hastening the environmental destruction. Good for them!
Those on the left don't like to discuss it because it "smacks of racism". Well then, let us not discuss it!
But I trust that Mother Nature, who gives zero fucks about either the right or the left, will take care of thin
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Caused by African overpopulation (Score:2)
Africa's population increased from a few hundred million to over ONE BILLION people in just a few decades. You cannot expect an increase like that not to affect the ecosystem. Imagine the ecological disaster waiting for Africa when it reaches 3 Billion people by the end of this century.
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Imagine the ecological disaster waiting for Africa when it reaches 3 Billion people by the end of this century.
Imagine if Africa hadn't been looted by its neighbors systematically for centuries.
Oh, you libs (Score:1)
Nature and Evolution (Score:2)
What is the natural expected value for the number of plants threatened by extinction? If we learned one thing from Darwin, it's that life is a constant struggle all the time, and species will die out of they don't adapt. Modern methods allow us to classify and discover far more plants and species than in the past, so there is also a bias there.
So, without knowing and mentioning the average ratio of plants threatened by extinction over the course of life on earth, it's impossible to know whether one third is