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An epidemic of extinctions: Decimation of life on earth

enn.com — Species are dying out at a rate not seen since the demise of the dinosaurs, according to a report published today – and human behaviour is to blame.

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cosmikdebris 105 days ago, made popular 104 days ago

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WordsnCollision, on 05/17/2008, -9/+18The other side of the coin is that after each of the great historic extinctions, life bounced back with a vengeance. Given, humans may be driving species to extinction - life will adapt, however, and a variety of "human proof" species will spring up to fill the gaps. This might not be a good thing for the humans...
- ElAssoWipo, on 05/17/2008, -0/+22There are no humans without biodiversity.
  
  Remove insect eating species, let insects who eat our crops expand exponentially, and we all starve to death.
  
  No bees? No pollination. No pollination, no food. We're not gods, we depend on everything around us to survive.
  
  And all the things we depend on depend on everything around them to survive.
  
  If we don't start controlling humanity willingly, necessity will force us to wage war against each other for the ressources that are left.
  
  But hey, this is old news. People simply don't accept it.
  - Envark, on 05/17/2008, -6/+2We only have to keep the natural system in place until we can replicate it using technology.
    Hopefully, future GM food strains and nanotechnology will reduce our reliance on nature.
    - buckrogers1965, on 05/17/2008, -0/+2We aren't smart enough to replicate natural systems with technology. Maybe if we went slowly and took a few hundred years we could figure it out. But we don't have that much time.
  - compcarp, on 05/17/2008, -9/+0You make a great argument against the popular myth of evolution. All life on earth is dependent on another. Even IF inanimate material could come from nothing - and even life could spring from that inanimate material... what is observable (science) is that all life is interdependent and could not long survive (if at all) without a complete and functioning eco-system.
    - ElAssoWipo, on 05/17/2008, -0/+6That doesn't contradict evolution in the least bit.
      
      "Even IF inanimate material could come from nothing"
      
      You make a great argument against the existence of God.
    - jimmy17, on 05/17/2008, -0/+9Sigh, this is getting boring people. Like it or not evolution is a proven FACT. End of story.
    - MWeather, on 05/17/2008, -0/+1"You make a great argument against the existence of God."
      
      Actually Mikhail Lomonosov and Antoine Lavoisier deserve credit for that one.
  - mstrebe, on 05/17/2008, -0/+1Life on earth will always find equilibrium. If humans refuse to change their ways, eventually some man-made catastrophe will cause 90% of them to die off, and the earth will return to wild, with a sustainable number of humans who have survived because of their superior adaptability or beneficial location.
    That's why I'm not worried.
    - Myztry, on 05/18/2008, -0/+1I'm not worried for myself, but I'm kind of hoping my children aren't in that 90%
- CaptainCool53, on 05/17/2008, -2/+5Or humans will go extinct.
  - Myztry, on 05/18/2008, -0/+1That's the most likely scenario. Either that or all life on Earth. It's really not wise to be genetically modifying viruses considering that science can not cure a single post-infection virus.
    Our immune systems can, but sometimes only with help. All it takes is a highly deadly version of the flu, which keeps coming back, and it's game over...
- macweirdo42, on 05/17/2008, -2/+6I wish more people got that. "Eco freaks" aren't in it for the planet - the planet's tough, she can take a much greater beating than we could ever hope to inflict. It's us that are screwed - it really wouldn't take much at all to wipe us out. I mean, the human race could literally be obliterated with the press of a button, thanks to our nuclear stockpiles. And yet, for some reason, people wanna keep pretending that we can't hurt ourselves.
  - CaptainCool53, on 05/17/2008, -0/+2You should check out 'Ishmael' by Daniel Quinn. He answers why "for some reason, people wanna keep pretending that we can't hurt ourselves," among other things. It's a great read.
- blast_flame, on 05/17/2008, -2/+1Such a thing however would take so long that we would have either developed new technologies that nature would not be immune to or left fro space.
  - CaptainCool53, on 05/17/2008, -1/+2What technology could nature not be immune to?
    - CaptainCool53, on 05/17/2008, -1/+2The point is WE will always be at nature's whim.
    - Envark, on 05/17/2008, -1/+2Speak for yourself, Captain.
      I do not intend to be at nature's whim.
    - CaptainCool53, on 05/18/2008, -1/+2Let me know how that turns out.
    - blast_flame, on 05/18/2008, -0/+1So a million years from now when humanity has uploaded their minds to a self replicating nanite swarm, living their lives in virtual reality paradise but they will still be at the whims of nature? How does that work?
    - CaptainCool53, on 05/18/2008, -0/+1Humans can do whatever they want with their minds. The fact will still remain, we are completely dependent on Earth's ecosystem. I just read somewhere (can't remember what magazine) that every third bite of food in the US is dependent on bees pollinating plants.
      Our reality may be virtual in a hundred years, but an ecosystem collapse is an ecosystem collapse, and whether we choose to acknowledge it or not, we're headed for one, and it'll be devastating.
    - blast_flame, on 05/20/2008, -0/+1Maybe for now but that will change.
    - CaptainCool53, on 05/21/2008, -0/+1How? Last I heard, you can't make something out of nothing.
    - CaptainCool53, on 05/22/2008, -0/+1If you meant that our heading for an ecosystem collapse will change, I hope you're right. But saying it'll change and actually changing are two very different things.
      If you meant the effect of such a collapse won't be devastating, then my above post still applies.
  - blast_flame, on 05/17/2008, -2/+1It isn't a question of nature being able to adapt to them, it's a question of nature being able to adapt before we've moved on to something more advanced. Also any really advanced technologies like anti-matter which we'll probably have by the time would be impossible for nature to adapt to.
- neofreakiii, on 05/17/2008, -1/+4The problem is how long does it take for life to bounce back. We humans may be killing off species way too fast for life to adapt. By the time, life adapts, it may be too late.
  - maelnum, on 05/17/2008, -1/+2I disagree. Life will bounce back. It has survived meteorite impact and other major climactic changes, Oxygen was once poisonous to majority of life on Earth, but life adapted. You find life everywhere on this planet. Granted, it will not be as familiar as the iconic cuddly panda bear or ever-nukable blue whale. Species have die off "naturally", but life is here to stay.
    Unless of course, those stupid drunk astronomers included a goatse attachment when they emailed altair. then we're screwed.
  - doubledmateo, on 05/18/2008, -0/+1Too late for what? All life is going to go extinct including bacteria and plants? That's a pretty tall order, and highly implausible. Humankind is in danger of wiping itself from the planet. Mother nature will alway populate the earth with something.
- monoa, on 05/17/2008, -1/+2It's this kind of half-informed commentary that validates all the other idiots.
  
  Yes, there have been other, natural mass extinctions and the planet's biodiversity has recovered - over the course of *millions* of years. That does not give humans an excuse to ***** the planet over by driving around in a 5 litre SUV or hopping on a plane any time you feel like it.
  
  "life, so incredibly resilient, has always recovered (though after long lags) after major extinction spasms, it is only after whatever has caused the extinction event has dissipated. That cause, in the case of the Sixth Extinction, is ourselves — ***** sapiens. This means we can continue on the path to our own extinction, or, preferably, we modify our behavior toward the global ecosystem of which we are still very much a part. The latter must happen before the Sixth Extinction can be declared over, and life can once again rebound." - http://www.actionbioscience.org/newfrontiers/eldre ...
  - CaptainCool53, on 05/18/2008, -0/+1Dugg.
    
    For everybody else: Our culture (the one that ***** ***** up) is about 6 thousand years old. Humans (***** sapiens) are 200,000 years old. The Earth is 4.5 billion years old. In just 6,000 years, we've managed the first ever man-made mass extinction in 200,000 years of existence, and the sixth ever mass extinction in 4.5 billion years. And we're not even operating at full *****-*****-up capacity. We have to wake up and realize what we're doing to ourselves, before it's too late (no cliche intended).
AlwaysAwake, on 05/17/2008, -5/+24Something is clearly happening. If we can leave our video games, and gawking at Britney Spears for awhile, and pay attention, perhaps we can learn more about it.
- kinerry, on 05/17/2008, -4/+4don't talk ***** about video games
- Szandor, on 05/17/2008, -0/+2I haven't gawked at Britney Spears since 2004.
hauntedchippy, on 05/17/2008, -10/+1***** happens
- metabob, on 05/17/2008, -0/+1And then humanity dies...
- hmunkey, on 05/18/2008, -0/+1Yeah, but not all of that ***** has a disastrous potential.
hempydave, on 05/17/2008, -8/+2I going hunting.....
loggedout, on 05/17/2008, -2/+5it's not called "human nature" for nothing..

but in all seriousness no matter how much environmentalists gripe, nothing significant will ever get done. too many people don't care to give the time to solve the problems.
- CaptainCool53, on 05/17/2008, -0/+6Something will get done because something HAS to get done. It's pretty simple. Either we begin following the laws of nature again, or nature gets rid of us. Either way, it's not the environment I'm concerned most about; it's us.
- MachtSpass, on 05/17/2008, -0/+3They will . . . as soon as it affects them personally or they have something personal to gain from it... Selfish, greediness: it's the human way.....! . . . Oh, and immediate gratification.
Jess2mix, on 05/17/2008, -4/+4That sucks, but at least the roaches will survive, they always survive....the little bastards!
ryancawdor, on 05/17/2008, -3/+15"Decimation" = 1 in 10

"Obliteration" is a better choice here.
- hiPpymIck, on 05/17/2008, -0/+3also
  
  correct me if im wrong..
  
  dont they mean numbers within each species
  NOT
  numbers of species
  
  i saw the same mistake on the BBC story but theyve since put it right - so i guess it was a badly worded press release
  http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7403989.stm
  - buckrogers1965, on 05/17/2008, -0/+1It's both, we are losing about 1% of the species on earth every year too, and all existing species are dropping in numbers, except for a few super invasive species that we have accidentally spread around.
dsyzdek, on 05/17/2008, -3/+4Remember that we humans depend on other species for food, shelter, and other "ecosystem services" and life could get very uncomfortable for us if we need to find substitutes. Just think of all the crops that rely on insect pollinators. Looking at geologic time, life bounces back fast, but that's not going to help the next generations of humans
- marx2k, on 05/17/2008, -3/+4Neither is this generation of humans toting around the next generation of humans in SUVs, feeding them unnatural foods, teaching them to consume, consume, consume
gkiltz, on 05/17/2008, -2/+3Nature has been through this before, and has not only survived but thrived!
This is a first for humans, however!
Will we be one of those species?
DaLukeMan, on 05/17/2008, -2/+4It's in our nature to ***** ***** up.
cjmal, on 05/17/2008, -12/+2"Species are dying out at a rate not seen since the demise of the dinosaurs" How the hell would anyone know that? Nobody from that time is alive today to prove that.
- marx2k, on 05/17/2008, -0/+6Not much of an armchair anthropologist, are you?
- positron, on 05/17/2008, -0/+2cjmal, meet fossil record.
- Szandor, on 05/17/2008, -0/+2That might be the dumbest comment I've ever seen on Digg, unless you were being humorous; in which case I give you kudos.
yellowdart1219, on 05/17/2008, -4/+0life is being reduced by a power of ten?
methos75, on 05/17/2008, -7/+0All Animal life is dying, so the books Man after Man and Last and First Men: A Story of the Near and Far Future close to reality it seems.
9bpm9, on 05/17/2008, -7/+4*****. The only reason they chose to relate this to the extinction of the dinosaurs is because we don't know anything god damn else about extinction rates between those 65 billion years. I bet in a few of those Ice Ages animals were dieing off just a tad more quickly.
- hendrixiloveyou, on 05/17/2008, -0/+265 BILLION YEARS AGO !
- hairydotus, on 05/18/2008, -0/+1we do know of extinction rates in the past. They know about animals that went extinct during ice ages because there were a lot. It is just that A. the dinasoaur extinction was huge and so is this. B. natural cycles of earth didn't kill of dinasaours an asteroid did and Human's are destroying the animals this time. Both of which are natural in the sense that everything is natural but they are artificial because they are atypical and not part of the natural cycle of the planet
  - prometheanspark, on 05/18/2008, -0/+1That' isn't necessarily true. Note that the article said 'biodiversity' reduced by 1/3 or so. Most of the species that have been going extinct recently have been ones that are highly specialized with limited ranges, which puts them at higher risk of extinction. However when we look at the fossil record, we know the most about the things that were very common and turn up again and again in fossils. With each ice age, similar species with limited ranges were certainly wiped out, but there isn't enough fossil evidence of such relatively rare species for us to be able to see it. Most common species, the type which will be showing up in the fossil record in 1M years, are still doing okay because they are more vigorous than the less common, specialized species. It may well be that scientists looking at the fossil record in the distant future won't be able to discern much in the way of extinctions. They probably will notice though that many species from one part of the world moved to another. CA rivers now support sunfish, catfish, smallmouth bass, largemouth bass, striped bass, a couple types of carp, brown trout, brook trout, ect, - which probably don't count as 'biodiversity' because they're non-native - but there is still quite a number of fish in there.
    
    Also moden species are MUCH more finely divided than prehistoric species, as far as splitting species into smaller populations. From fossils we cannot see the color differences in fish, or amphibians to tell that two similar looking skeletons were in fact different species, making identification possible only down to about the genus level. Just because a certain genus survived through an event doesn't mean that 95% of the species in that genus didn't go extinct.
    
    Coho salmon for instance, range from central california up though alaska. CA is the southern edge of their range and they aren't particularly well adapted to live here because it's warm and they need cool water. It doesn't take much to make a stream inhospitable to them, so there goes the biodiversity in that stream - but in truth there are very healthy populations of coho farther north where they're better adapted for survival. In CA they're ESA listed 'threatened', while farther north they're healthy and support a fishery. Is it any shock that at the very margins of a species range they don't do very well? And should we bend over backwards and waste resources to ensure that they survive in marginal habitats? They've basically divided the exact same species of fish into many sub-groups and called some of them endangered. That's pretty disingenuous. Using similar logic we could call humans in Detroit 'threatened' because the population is crashing there....
    - hairydotus, on 05/19/2008, -0/+1I agree with 99% of what you are saying, they only thing I cannot agree with is that you said that most species that are going extinct are highly specialized and while this may be true to some extent although not completely, look at large predators such as sharks, tigers, panthers, wolves, tuna, cod etc. These animals are not highly specialized and can survive if one food source disappears or if their habitat changes, simply look at sharks they have been on this planet since before dinosaurs roamed the earth so why are their numbers are declining so rapidly now. It isn't because they are not fit for survival it is because they are being over hunted for mostly unneeded reasons. And to go back to your comment about highly specialized species being the ones that are dying off that has a lot to do with deforestation and loss of habitat. We can look at Madagascar for a perfect example. Madagascar is home to some of the most specialized species on the planet. Lizards so specialized that their camouflage depends on a specific tree for them to hide. These animals are going extinct because they are losing their habitat, not because of a natural climate shift or natural disaster but because of human destruction. Less than 10% of Madagascar's original natural habitat still exists. Forests have been cleared to farm, and grow things like coffee.
      
      While I do agree that highly specialized species have a much smaller chance for survival in a changing world, we need to ask ourselves why is the world changing and I am not speaking simply about climate change and global warming. I am talking about rapid habitat loss due to deforestation and rapid urbanization of many parts of the world. I understand that it is nearly impossible to solve the increasing human population problem but it is a problem none the less that needs addressing.
      
      To end my comment however I would like to address what I believe is the largest problem facing animals in todays world. And that is poaching and illegal animal trade. Many of todays seriously threatened species, species that could be extinct in the next decade or less are not dying of natural causes. They are being pulled from their environment and either being sold for their skins (tigers) or being sold as exotic pets. And many people like to believe that most of these problems happen only in places like thailand and other nations in south east asia. People in the States are just as much at blame because wealthy americans are many times the customers.
MadEnvoy, on 05/17/2008, -8/+3And yet we are still discovering new species...

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/08031 ...
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/08031 ...
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/02/08020 ...
- marx2k, on 05/17/2008, -0/+7If you start with ten apples and every minute you lose 2 apples but I give you one apple in return, are you:
  A) Gaining apples
  B) Maintaining apples
  C) Losing apples
- neofreakiii, on 05/17/2008, -0/+6Yes ironic isn't it, we there are so many species we haven't found and yet we may have already drove them to extinction.
3leggedHorse, on 05/17/2008, -0/+4 A warming planet, Lizards return to the throne. http://www.flickr.com/photos/bar-art/406307977/
Orion1004, on 05/17/2008, -1/+5Harvard's EO Wilson thinks mass species extinction this century will be worse than the effect of global warming on the planet.
- hairydotus, on 05/18/2008, -0/+1I completely agree with that. Nobody realizes how important animals are to are survival. they control pests, pollinate our fruit plants, every animals works in balance so no one gets too powerful or too overpopulated but this extinction could throw that off.
kinerry, on 05/17/2008, -2/+3We are only doing what is natural, eventually we wipe ourselves out by overpopulation

nature will adjust over time anyway, it's called evolution
- hairydotus, on 05/18/2008, -0/+1Yes you are correct, the point however that people are making is that this evolution and extinction does not have to occur. It could be stopped or at least slowed by a change in human activiity that is damaging the planet. No species damages the planet or the creatures that live on it except parasites. All other animals work in harmony
joeanon, on 05/17/2008, -6/+3Yeah, species are meant to die. That's just how it goes.

Those chose to relate it to the Dinosaurs, most likely because it's the SINGLE event in history that more people have heard of when it comes to mass extinctions.

I agree, this is not the 2nd worst extinction in history. There are several others that would certainly qualify as much greater and faster than today. That's most sensational journalists in the heading.

How would they know species are dying..
GEE Vern... they leave skeletons behind in the layers of the earth that can be easily dated.

They don't die and then bury themselves at random depths you know.
In a mass extinction you can see the fossil life compressed into this one layer where there was mass death. So fossils of plants and animals will be VERY plentiful in that layer of the earth.

They can also then go back before or below the layer of earth that contains mass extinctions and note the rate of fossils and they can then go forward in time ABOVE the layer and see that 80% of those species never came back.

It's really amazing to look at the layer of earth where most species were killed by the Yucatan meteor strike. You can literally see the amounts of dead creatures bured in this one thing layer of earth compared to all the other layers which do not contain masses of fossils.

You know right then that something killed all these creatures very quickly or their remains wouldn't be so dense in one layer of the earth.

As I said after examining adjacent layers you can see those species existed BEFORE the KT event and then never existed again as their are no fossil remains of them in layer or higher layers of the earth.

These finding can be re-cerated all over the earth, so then you also no it's not a localized event on some odd erosion or earthquake simple rumbling up the layer of earth and putting the time line out of order.

When you consider how much earth there is and that the layers of earth fairly consistently show these facts you don't need radio carbon dating to logicall deduct much of the history, but more so just to tag dates on them such as .. that happen ABOUT 65 million year ago.

No matter WHEN it happen though... it did happen and the proof is right there categorized and safely undisturbed under million of years of erosion.

Minerals in those layers also give us clues as to what has happening. Similar, ice cores give us trapped atmosphere gases of the times so we can try to figure out CO2 level or such.

Piece it all together and you can slowly put together a model of what used to be,

It's not perfect, but it's easily far better than guessing and the when we find craters that JUST SO happen to big HUGE and happen at the same time of the extinction we can be sure that something like the Yucatan impact MUST have caused unimaginable disaster. At that point it becomes fairly unlikely that a mass extinction happened at roughly the same time as impact of proportions we cannot barely model.

But, on top of that we also find earth samples that suggest that mineral content at the Yucatan can be found spread out throughout the world, while other large, but not insanely large impact sites don't share that similarity. If you continue to research it, it become impossible to deny the logicistics that a Yucatan strike created disaster conditions that killed the dinosaurs.

However, that is among ONE of many events and not even the biggest. Before the earth continents had drifted apart we were hit by an even larger strike which they say may have given rise to the dinosaurs by creating ideal conditions and causing the type of negative, survive or die stimulis that evolution does best under.

That is, a plentiful world without disaster has little evolution while a starving world with negative stimulus causes evolution to happen faster.

Just as a nuclear war could trigger new evolutions out of necessity and in this case radiation.
During the times of plentiful food and stability species have little reason to evolve compared to when things go wrong and you must survive or die at a greater ratio. That's when evolution shines, during negative stimulus, not positive. Just like if you feed your cat it will never learn to hunt well. At that very basic level, if food is available than evolution is not needed and a species will reproduce to at most... eat more. If the sun stops shining though and food supplies drop drastically and the continents flood then perhaps even moles learn to climb trees :P

Obviously we don't know the progressions of evolution, more DNA and, of course, fossil work though is likely the best place to look.

Plus we must all realize, science doesn't need to prove things beyond a reasonable doubt. This isn't court. Science needs but come up the best answer of the times based off the evidence.
It's not like religion, you don't get the question and the answer all rolled into one.
- hiPpymIck, on 05/17/2008, -0/+1i didnt read that.. too long
- hairydotus, on 05/18/2008, -0/+1The only problem with your statement is, how do you know that species aren 't dying at that fast of a rate. Are you researching this probobly not. 18000 to 30000 species every years is pretty fast.
NelsonR, on 05/17/2008, -1/+2Humans having been on earth only a twinkling of the time of the dinosaurs and accomplishing many wars and other misery's proves one point, our time will be remarkably shorter. We will join the species we are now destroying. Surprised we made it this far.
- j3ff86, on 05/17/2008, -1/+1It's true that over the past 1/2 billion years most species have eventually gone extinct, but there are big freaking differences between them and us. Most importantly we can manipulate our environment, and not go extinct over trivial things like the sea level dropping or decaying algae sucking the oxygen out of shallow seas.
  - buckrogers1965, on 05/17/2008, -2/+2We aren't as smart as you think. We can go extinct too, and rather quickly.
  - NelsonR, on 05/17/2008, -2/+0You missed my central point. Man will destroy man through wars while each Religion practices correctness in their corner only. Dinosaurs had no such mental disabilities.
defwheezer, on 05/17/2008, -7/+2Nothing to see here folks, just another vast liberal conspiracy to frighten the masses. /s
- offspring06, on 05/17/2008, -1/+5Take off the blinders. Humans rely on other species to live.
  - hairydotus, on 05/18/2008, -0/+1thank you
- Szandor, on 05/17/2008, -0/+3Guess some missed the /s tag.
- angryredplanet, on 05/18/2008, -0/+1I digg down all political comments regardless of sarcasm. Consider it a pet indulgence.
franksalvo, on 05/17/2008, -0/+3I like to look at these results as a sort of barometer. A doom barometer.
- Szandor, on 05/17/2008, -1/+1Doom barometer. Has a nice ring to it. Would function well as:
  
  New catchphrase for any dire scientific results.
  Name of a metal band.
didgital, on 05/17/2008, -1/+2After having sushi last night, I felt compelled to find this list.
Choose the fish you eat smarter:
http%3A%2F%2Fwww.fishonline.org%2Finformation%2FMCSPocket_Good_Fish_Guide.pdf
http%3A%2F%2Fwww.environmentaldefense.org%2Fdocuments%2F1980_pocket_seafood_selector.pdf
buckrogers1965, on 05/17/2008, -0/+3We are going to change our way of life in the next few decades. We have no other choice. If we don't do so voluntarily, then the changes will be forced on us. There is no way for 10 billion people in the world to all live in the suburbs and drive their SUV's to the mall. Not without killing off every native plant and animal on earth.
jbenson2, on 05/18/2008, -0/+1Some past cases:

"Are you telling me I can't build my Burger King because a Delhi Sands flower-loving fly that has never been seen and is above ground only a few days a year might be near-by?" YES

"I can't build a connector road because the noise from construction might damage the hearing of the Stephens' kangaroo rat thus impairing its reproduction?" YES

"All construction in San Diego involving impacts to road ruts which might contain Vernal Pool Fairy Shrimp is enjoined? All construction?" YES

The Polar Bear listing is worse than any of these examples, because it will affect all businesses that require Federal licensing or approval.

Test cases should be brought by industry that argue that various federal permits --import/export permits, private jet landing permits, conservation banking permits-- all have greenhouse gas impacts, no matter how small, and thus that they must be subject to Section 7 review.

I would love to see industry go after the Hollywood PRIVATE JET INDUSTRY. Oh, how the effete liberal snobs would react. It would be positively wonderful!
Ronian12, on 05/18/2008, -0/+1WTF? Show me the data they have been collecting for the last 100 million years that confirms this.
prometheanspark, on 05/18/2008, -0/+2When the dinosaurs went extinct, 98% of the major land animals went extinct. That is NOT happening now. The species we're losing are mostly minor species that are already on the brink of extinction. For the most part we're just pushing species over the edge that already had their toes on it.

Also, just because an area loses 'biodiversity' doesn't mean that anything went extinct. Just that it isn't in that area anymore. Mountain lions used to live throughout the US, but now they're limited to the northwest. They're not even close to endangered, but because they don't live in virginia anymore, virginia has had a loss of 'biodiversity'.

Similarly, cities and suburbs have a near 100% loss in 'native biodiversity', but though the native lifeforms are mostly gone (a few trees, bushes, squirrels and weeds stay), we put in other plants and animals to make up for it. They're just different plants and animals - but that's not a sign of impending doom for the earth. Unlike environmentalists, nature doesn't care if a plant is native or not, just that it sucks up CO2, produces oxygen, enhances the soil and produces food for some other creature. Suburbia has much more plant biodiversity than wild habitat, just it doesn't count because people put them there.

If you cut down a wild tree and replace it with an apple tree, the folks who wrote that article consider it to be the same as if you pave it over with concrete. That's not the same thing, though, and frankly that's misleading.
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An epidemic of extinctions: Decimation of life on earth

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