当前的大灭绝

加入我们的科学爱好者社区!


关于支持科学新闻业

如果您喜欢这篇文章,请考虑通过以下方式支持我们屡获殊荣的新闻业: 订阅。 通过购买订阅,您将帮助确保未来能够继续讲述关于塑造我们当今世界的发现和思想的具有影响力的故事。


“大灭绝”这个词组通常让人联想到由剧烈的环境变化引发的事件,例如导致恐龙和许多其他物种在 6500 万年前灭绝的小行星撞击。事实上,化石记录中已经确定了五次这样大规模的灭绝事件,并且根据上周五在墨西哥城举行的脊椎动物古生物学会年会上提出的研究结果,另一次灭绝正在进行中。这一次的原因并非像巨型小行星或气候的剧烈变化那样引人注目。相反,似乎是人类的压力是罪魁祸首。

密歇根大学古生物学家凯瑟琳·巴杰利 (Catherine Badgely) 说,与其它大灭绝一样,当前的危机是全球性的,影响范围广泛的物种。她报告说,某些脊椎动物(有脊椎的动物)物种尤其脆弱,特别是那些地理范围狭小或生存需求狭窄的物种。 数字令人震惊。 四分之一的哺乳动物濒临灭绝或已经灭绝,鸟类也是如此,比例为 15%。 在这两个群体中,体型较大的物种处境最为艰难。

威胁这些生物的人类压力包括栖息地破坏和改造、过度捕猎、外来物种的引入以及二氧化碳浓度的增加。尽管如此,巴杰利说,目前被指定为濒危动物的灭绝并非不可避免。 但是,为了保护它们,人类的行为需要发生巨大的改变。

Kate Wong is an award-winning science writer and senior editor at 大众科学 focused on evolution, ecology, anthropology, archaeology, paleontology and animal behavior. She is fascinated by human origins, which she has covered for more than 25 years. Recently she has become obsessed with birds. Her reporting has taken her to caves in France and Croatia that Neandertals once called home, to the shores of Kenya's Lake Turkana in search of the oldest stone tools in the world, to Madagascar on an expedition to unearth ancient mammals and dinosaurs, to the icy waters of Antarctica, where humpback whales feast on krill, and on a "Big Day" race around the state of Connecticut to find as many bird species as possible in 24 hours. Kate is co-author, with Donald Johanson, of Lucy's Legacy: The Quest for Human Origins. She holds a bachelor of science degree in biological anthropology and zoology from the University of Michigan. Follow Wong on X (formerly Twitter) @katewong

More by Kate Wong
© . All rights reserved.