We are facing an oceanic mass extinction event that could be greater than that which occurred when the dinosaurs were wiped out 65 million years ago by an asteroid smashing into the Yucatan Peninsula.
The study by Macquarie University palaeobiologist Dr John Alroy was published this week in Science. Compiling data from nearly 100,000 fossil collections worldwide, it tracked the fate of marine animals during previous mass extinction events.
Alroy says that the major extinction event that is currently under way has the potential to be the worst ever. “Organisms that might have adapted in the past may not be able to this time,” Dr Alroy said.
Oceanic mass extinction already under way.
Environmental degradation (including introduced foreign species, run-off from fertilisers and pesticides, pollution and deforestation) and climate change are driving the events that will have devastating affects on species across the planet. “So what we’re basically doing as the human species collectively is we’re running this gigantic experiment with nature,” he says.
There have been three major mass extinction events throughout history and biologists widely agree the world is currently suffering from another.
So far the current situation is not as bad as the worst mass extinction known: the Permian-Triassic extinction or Great Dying of 250 million years ago. But there is no room for complacency – Alroy says that “it’s safe to say that we have not yet lost nearly as much as what was lost during that event but it’s also reasonable to say that we could end up losing as much as was lost in that event.”
We’re currently playing games with evolution on an epic scale. Really, really big mass extinctions happen very, very rarely and they have very important long-term consequences.
It appears that mass extinction events like the one we are facing seem to flush the evolutionary rulebook down the toilet – afterwards the rules governing the diversity of major species groups that are assumed to be invariant have actually changed, resulting in completely unpredictable outcomes in terms of species diversity and distribution. “What’s worrisome is that some groups permanently become dominant that otherwise wouldn’t have. So by causing this extinction, we are taking a big gamble on what kind of species will be around in the future. We don’t know how it will turn out. People don’t realise that there will be very unpredictable consequences.”
-Compiled from news sources.
