Based on new analysis, mammals, birds and insects are the groups facing significant declines – Photo: ALAMY
Evolutionary biologist Daniel Pincheira-Donoso and his team at the Macrobiodiversity Laboratory at Queen’s University Belfast (UK) analyzed more than 700,000 species, including mammals, birds and cows, reptiles, amphibians, fish and insects, to understand which populations are at risk. from disappearing from the planet and who have a good chance of surviving.
Previously, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) list only had about 28% of species currently threatened with extinction. But new research shows that 33% of species currently classified as “non-threatened” on the IUCN Red List are in fact declining towards extinction.
The calculations of this study are accepted by the IUCN itself as a measure of risk of species extinction. The data the team used also came from populations of species collected in 2022 by the IUCN and its international partners from civil and government conservation groups.
Based on the new analysis, mammals, birds and insects are the groups facing significant declines.
Amphibians – long known to be particularly vulnerable to industrial chemicals, disease and fungi – also face some of the most serious risks.
Alarmingly, very few species have actually benefited from the conservation, population growth, and climate change mitigation campaigns that humans have launched.
Amphibians are particularly vulnerable to industrial chemicals, disease and fungi – Photo: WIKI COMMONS
According to the study, the hardest hit species tend to reside in the tropics, where the effects of climate change are most pronounced.
“Animals from the tropics are more sensitive to rapid changes in the temperature of the environment”, says biologist Pincheira-Donoso.
Although this new study is much appreciated by international scientists, there are still gaps. There are many populations of unknown or unrecorded species. Furthermore, the scope of the study is limited to tropical regions. The tropics have a greater number of species, but are not representative of the number and characteristics of all species in the world.
The study has just been published in the journal Wiley Online Library, months after another study revealed new details about the first mass extinction event on Earth, which occurred 550 million years ago.
Evolutionary biologist Daniel Pincheira-Donoso, lead author of the study, called the situation “very alarming” and said humans have wiped out a large number of species, pushing many others into the extinction zone. The next mass extinction event will also happen because of humans.
