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Science

Number of Species at Risk of Extinction Doubles To 2 Million, Says Study (theguardian.com) 21

Two million species are at risk of extinction, a figure that is double previous UN estimates, new analysis has found. From a report: While scientists have long documented the decline of species of plants and vertebrates, there has always been significant uncertainty over insects, with the UN making a "tentative estimate" of 10% threatened with extinction in 2019. Since then, more data has been collected on insects, showing the proportion at risk of extinction is much higher than previously estimated. Because there are so many insect species, this doubles the global number of species at risk, according to the paper, published in Plos One on Wednesday.

Lead researcher, Axel Hochkirch, from the Musee National d'Histoire Naturelle in Luxembourg, said: "What our study does is really highlight that insects are as threatened as other taxa. And because they are the most species-rich group of animals on our planet, this is really something which should be addressed." Understanding what is happening to global insect populations has been challenging because of the lack of data - but 97% of all animals are invertebrates. Of that group, about 90% are classified as insects. They provide vital ecosystem services: pollinating crops, recycling nutrients into soils, and decomposing waste. "Without insects, our planet will not be able to survive," Hochkirch said. The team looked at all European species on the International Union for Conservation of Nature's red list of threatened species. This is considered the most comprehensive source of information on species at risk. They found a fifth of European species were at risk of extinction, with 24% of invertebrates at risk, as well as 27% of all plants and 18% of vertebrates.

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Number of Species at Risk of Extinction Doubles To 2 Million, Says Study

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  • Most of them won't be missed until it's far too late. Hopefully the really important ones will also be the ones that are genetically simple enough to be recreated with current or near-future technology, or we're good and fucked already.

    • What makes a species important? Its taste? Cuteness? Pharmaceutical properties? I mean chicken is “important” to a lot of people for that reason right? I am sure a chicken would be delighted to hear that.

      • Well, it's definitely not cuteness.

      • Position in the ecosystem, obviously. Which is often less than well understood.

        • Position in the ecosystem, obviously. Which is often less than well understood.

          I've always wondered about ticks. I mean possums eat them, but mostly as a little snack. But otherwise they seem to be mostly a nasty disease vector.

          Full disclosure, I managed to contract Lyme disease, and it's not much fun. I'm not as badly affected as some. Some folks get a combo of joint destruction and something like Chronic fatigue syndrome.

          I go through a lot of picardin spray now when I'm outside. Deet works too, but it makes my skin feel hot.

          What I want is a monthly skin treatment like dogs a

        • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • Honeybees may be a good example. Things that carry far more responsibility than many assume in keeping many other plants and therefore animals alive.
      • I've always thought that what's important is its existance. Every species plays a part in ecosystems, which destabilise when they die off. As the dominant species in terms of the damage we do, we need to pull our socks up and preserve better.
    • Ultimately the survivors would diversify and evolve to fill in the niches left by extinct species. If life were that fragile, we wouldn't be here at all in the first place. Species that humans find to be useful are also likely to survive just because we'll try to keep them around. We can already do so crazy things today with gene editing. In fifty years we'll be considerably more advanced still. The wars that will result from climate change will kill far more people than the changing climate itself could ho
      • The wars that will result from climate change will kill far more people than the changing climate itself could hope to.

        Wars resulting from climate change are effects of climate change. Same as famines for instance (those are not just "a lack of food happening ex nihilo").

        But I do agree that a lot of unpleasant things are coming with climate change, and not just a few more hot days per year.

      • This sort of thinking is so astoundingly shirt sighted.
    • Don't you believe in evolution?

      All life on Earth presumably began with a spark of life in a pool of primordial ooze and EVERYTHING alive since evolved (often in very hostile conditions) to fill all the niches of the ecosystem. If you indeed believe that life is that capable of evolving to fill holes in the ecosystem, then surely you know that any new holes that open up due to something going extinct will eventually be filled by a newly evolved organism that's, in all likelihood, superior to the one that wen

  • by ZipNada ( 10152669 ) on Thursday November 09, 2023 @08:08PM (#63994607)

    A gigantic amount of insecticides get sprayed on crops, and it doesn't all just stay there. We are poisoning the planet for insects.

  • Please stop shopping. Just view every new purchase as future land-fill & ask yourself, how long will it be before this gets buried, dumped, or flushed out to sea, where it'll inflict ecological damage for an indeterminate length of time?

    Just in time for Christmas!
    • Oh yeah, & plastics production is still increasing exponentially while we're all being told that recycling is a viable solution. We need legislation & international treaties to reign in the plastics industry. It's literally killing us.
  • The real number of species at risk of extinction is 'all of them'. Also, its not a risk. Its a certainty on a long enough time scale.
  • I mean, how many fucking different species of beetles and newts does a planet really need?

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