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National Academy of Sciences, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 25(112), p. 7761-7766, 2015

DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1502350112

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Mass extinction in poorly known taxa

Journal article published in 2015 by Claire Régnier, Guillaume Achaz, Amaury Lambert ORCID, Robert H. Cowie, Philippe Bouchet, Benoît Fontaine
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.

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Abstract

Significance Since the 1980s, many biologists have concluded that the earth is in the midst of a massive biodiversity extinction crisis caused by human activities. Yet fewer than 1,000 of the planet’s 1.9 million known species are officially recorded as extinct. Skeptics have therefore asked “Is there really a crisis?” Mammals and birds provide the most robust data, because the status of almost all has been assessed. Invertebrates constitute over 99% of species diversity, but the status of only a tiny fraction has been assessed, thereby dramatically underestimating overall levels of extinction. Using data on terrestrial invertebrates, this study estimates that we may already have lost 7% of the species on Earth and that the biodiversity crisis is real.