Current Extinctions

Rates of Extinction Expected from Fossil Record: 4 species a year go extinct from 10 million living species 1 mammal species (out of about 4000 living) extinct every 400 years 1 bird species (out of just over 9000 living) extinct every 200 years 40 plant species extinct in 400 years (out of 250,000 living)

Rates of Extinction Rates of extinction on mainland areas since 1600 mammals 1.6% extinct (62 of 4000) birds 1.3% extinct (117 of 9000) vascular plants 0.3% extinct (596 of 250,000)

Alwyn Gentry and friends in the field

Estimating Loss of Unknown Species Based on the Theory of Island Biogeography from which we know that larger areas support more species and from which we know that if we reduce the size of an island, we lose species - this knowledge is described by the species-area equation S = cA z where S = species number, A = area, c is a constant that varies depending on the type of species and the islands in question, z is the slope of the curve

Extinct Australian Megafauna

Some Extinct And still living Pleistocene Megafauna

Extinct American mega-bird

Recent Pleistocene Extinctions

Past Climate Change

Coring Glacial Ice

Ice Core Data

Pollen core data collection

Pollen Core Data

Distribution of North American Trees in past 16,000 years

Black-tailed prairie dog

Northern bog lemming

Eastern chipmunk

Global Ice Coverage Last Ice Age

Rainforests in: a. Glacial period, b. Inter-glacial period

Global carbon cycle

Carbon dioxide concentration at Mauna Loa

Change in Average Global Temperature

Statistics and climate change yer_embedded&v=e0vj-0imOLwhttp:// yer_embedded&v=e0vj-0imOLw

Surface temperature trends from eo/2011/oct/20/berkeley-earth-climate- change-videohttp:// eo/2011/oct/20/berkeley-earth-climate- change-video

Model predictions of global temperature increase

Predicted surface change

Current distributions of biomes

Predictions for biomes after global warming

The Earth Ice Free

Global Ice Coverage Last Ice Age

Will species be able to survive current climate change? Maybe Maybe not

Pikas may run out of mountaintop

The dodo What makes species vulnerable to extinction?

Passenger pigeon

Passenger pigeon

Allee Effect Some species have a minimum requirement for population size in order to successfully breed

Characteristics that predispose species to becoming extinct 1. habitat overlap - the species occupy habitat that is desirable to humans and lose out in competition with humans for the habitat - tallgrass prairie species 2. human attention - species suffer because singled out by humans - either desired as food or fur and hunted heavily (passenger pigeon, dodo, northern elephant seal); or disliked by humans and killed as varmints (wolves, African wild dogs) 3. large home range requirements - animals needing large areas can’t find large enough areas in human dominated landscape - California condor 4. limited adaptability and resilience - Pacific salmon return to natal stream to reproduce; won’t go elsewhere

Konza Prairie – Kansas

African wild dog

California Condor

Coho salmon

Salmon Life Cycle

Salmon support 137 species