SMILE

Stochastic Models for the Inference of Life Evolution

Bibtex

@article{regnier_mass_2015,
Author = {Regnier, Claire and Achaz, Guillaume and Lambert,
Amaury and Cowie, Robert H. and Bouchet, Philippe and
Fontaine, Benoit},
Title = {Mass extinction in poorly known taxa},
Journal = {Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the
United States of America},
Volume = {112},
Number = {25},
Pages = {7761--7766},
Note = {WOS:000356731300070},
Keywords = {biodiversity crisis, biodiversity hotspots,
conservation, endemism, invertebrates, islands, IUCN
Red List, pacific, patterns, richness, snails},
abstract = {Since the 1980s, many have suggested we are in the
midst of a massive extinction crisis, yet only 799
(0.04\%) of the 1.9 million known recent species are
recorded as extinct, questioning the reality of the
crisis. This low figure is due to the fact that the
status of very few invertebrates, which represent the
bulk of biodiversity, have been evaluated. Here we
show, based on extrapolation from a random sample of
land snail species via two independent approaches, that
we may already have lost 7\% (130,000 extinctions) of
the species on Earth. However, this loss is masked by
the emphasis on terrestrial vertebrates, the target of
most conservation actions. Projections of species
extinction rates are controversial because
invertebrates are essentially excluded from these
scenarios. Invertebrates can and must be assessed if we
are to obtain a more realistic picture of the sixth
extinction crisis.},
doi = {10.1073/pnas.1502350112},
issn = {0027-8424},
language = {English},
month = jun,
year = 2015
}