Paleontological baselines for evaluating extinction risk in the modern oceans
Recognizing the threat of additive risk
Humans are accelerating the extinction rates of species in both terrestrial and marine environments. However, species extinctions have occurred across time for a variety of other reasons. Finnegan et al. looked at the extinction rates across marine genera (groups of species) over the past 23 million years to determine intrinsic extinction rates and what traits or regions correspond to the highest rates. Combining patterns of intrinsic extinction with regions of high anthropogenic threat revealed taxa and areas, particularly in the tropics, where the risk of extinction will be especially high.
Science, this issue p. 567
Abstract
Marine taxa are threatened by anthropogenic impacts, but knowledge of their extinction vulnerabilities is limited. The fossil record provides rich information on past extinctions that can help predict biotic responses. We show that over 23 million years, taxonomic membership and geographic range size consistently explain a large proportion of extinction risk variation in six major taxonomic groups. We assess intrinsic risk—extinction risk predicted by paleontologically calibrated models—for modern genera in these groups. Mapping the geographic distribution of these genera identifies coastal biogeographic provinces where fauna with high intrinsic risk are strongly affected by human activity or climate change. Such regions are disproportionately in the tropics, raising the possibility that these ecosystems may be particularly vulnerable to future extinctions. Intrinsic risk provides a prehuman baseline for considering current threats to marine biodiversity.
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Supplementary Material
Summary
Materials and Methods
Figs. S1 to S27
Tables S1 to S3
Resources
References and Notes
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Science
Volume 348 | Issue 6234
1 May 2015
1 May 2015
Copyright
Copyright © 2015, American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Submission history
Received: 10 January 2015
Accepted: 23 March 2015
Published in print: 1 May 2015
Acknowledgments
This work is a product of the Determinants of Extinction in Ancient and Modern Seas Working Group supported by the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (NSF grant EF-0905606). Additional support was provided by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (to H.K.L., S.C.A., and Z.V.F.); the National System of Investigators of the National Secretariat for Science, Technology and Innovation of Panama (to A.O.); the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies (to J.M.P.); and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (grant KI 806/7-1 to C.S.). We thank the contributors to the Paleobiology Database and to OBIS. We also thank four anonymous reviewers for insightful comments that substantially improved the quality of the manuscript. This article is Paleobiology Database contribution no. 227. All scripts and data used to conduct analyses are available at https://github.com/seananderson/paleobaselines
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