The Yorkshire Museum was visited recently as they have an Extinct section which was relevant to the biodiversity research that has been conducted. The museum worked back through each of the Mass Extinction eras, explaining when and how this happened with a number of facts and statistics that helps within my research. The reason this was visited and relevant to my research is the exhibition explains how we are now in the 6th mass extinction and what we can do in terms of sustainability.
It was extremely interesting reading up and understanding the Mass Extinctions. What is interesting is how each extinction has had a reason why each has happened, however looking into the 6th, it shows that humans are the problem. Humans are hunting down species, killing off their habitats. It shows the great need for sustainability and more environmental development is drastically needed to help life on the planet.
"99% of the rich and vast diversity of species ever to have lived on Earth are now extinct."
1st Mass Extinction: The Ordovician-Silurian:
"The first mass extinction was the third largest extinction in Earths history. As many of the life were under the sea, it was sea creatures that were reduced drastically."
-BBC Nature
2nd Mass Extinction: Late Devonian
"Three quarters of all species on Earth died out in the Late Devonian mass extinction, though it may have been a series of extinctions over several million years, rather than a single event."
- BBC Nautre
3rd Mass Extinction: Permian-Triassic
"The Permian mass extinction has been nicknamed The Great Dying, since a staggering 96% of species died out. All life on Earth today is descended from the 4% of species that survived."
- BBC Nature
4th Mass Extinction:Triassic-Jurassic
"During the final 18 million years of the Triassic period, there were two or three phases of extinction whose combined effects created the Triassic-Jurassic mass extinction event. Climate change, flood basalt eruptions and an asteroid impact have all been blamed for this loss of life."
-BBC Nature
5th Mass Extinction
"The Cretaceous-Tertiary mass extinction - also known as the K/T extinction - is famed for the death of the dinosaurs. However, many other organisms perished at the end of the Cretaceous including the ammonites, many flowering plants and the last of the pterosaurs."
- BBC Nature
6th Mass Extinction?
"Unlike past mass extinctions, caused by events like asteroid strikes, volcanic eruptions, and natural climate shifts, the current crisis is almost entirely caused by us — humans. In fact, 99 percent of currently threatened species are at risk from human activities, primarily those driving habitat loss, introduction of exotic species, and global warming [3]. Because the rate of change in our biosphere is increasing, and because every species’ extinction potentially leads to the extinction of others bound to that species in a complex ecological web, numbers of extinctions are likely to snowball in the coming decades as ecosystems unravel.
Species diversity ensures ecosystem resilience, giving ecological communities the scope they need to withstand stress. Thus while conservationists often justifiably focus their efforts on species-rich ecosystems like rainforests and coral reefs — which have a lot to lose — a comprehensive strategy for saving biodiversity must also include habitat types with fewer species, like grasslands, tundra, and polar seas — for which any loss could be irreversibly devastating. And while much concern over extinction focuses on globally lost species, most of biodiversity’s benefits take place at a local level, and conserving local populations is the only way to ensure genetic diversity critical for a species’ long-term survival."
http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/
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