Michael Hannah, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington
While current extinction rates remain lower than during previous mass extinction events, the number of species under threat of dying out is growing, reflecting the true scale of loss.
Life was already getting harder for dinosaurs before an asteroid wiped them out.
metha1819/Shutterstock
Huge volcanic eruptions were once believed to be the cause of mass extinctions on Earth. However, new research has found that super eruptions did not necessarily result in mass extinctions.
66 million years ago, birds survived the calamity that wiped out all prehistoric dinosaurs. But could birds once again evolve into their long lost ancestors?
Microbial mats in Shark Bay, Western Australia, similar to those that lived around 200 million years ago.
Yalimay Jimenez Duarte WA-OIGC, Curtin University
The end-Triassic mass extinction was a cataclysm for the world’s prehistoric species, killed off by volcanoes that altered Earth’s seas and skies. But new research shows it didn’t happen when we thought.
The analysis suggests that there was a mass extinction event at the time of the end-Permian, on land - and that it happened at the same time as the marine end-Permian extinction.
When freshwater dried up, so did many megafauna species.
Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage
Populations of plankton are in decline. If we push this critical foundation of the marine food chain to extinction, we could cripple ecosystems for millions of years.
Matthew Flinders Professor of Global Ecology and Models Theme Leader for the ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, Flinders University