Extinction

Extinction talk

Extinctions are a part of life on earth. Indeed, over 99.9% of all species that once existed have gone extinct. However, humans are doing a good job in helping species into early extinction. In this talk, I fist review some classic mass extinction, and then review ecology and genetic risk factors for extinction. I finish by discussing how to assess (and defend) a species risk assessment and wit...

Superstar Extinction

We estimate the magnitude of spillovers generated by 112 academic “superstars” who died prematurely and unexpectedly, thus providing an exogenous source of variation in the structure of their collaborators’ coauthorship networks. Following the death of a superstar, we find that collaborators experience, on average, a lasting 5 to 8% decline in their quality-adjusted publication rates. By explor...

Rethinking Extinction

Extinction serves as the leading theoretical framework and experimental model to describe how learned behaviors diminish through absence of anticipated reinforcement. In the past decade, extinction has moved beyond the realm of associative learning theory and behavioral experimentation in animals and has become a topic of considerable interest in the neuroscience of learning, memory, and emotio...

Ecological Consequences of Extinction Ecological Consequences of Extinction

Selecting for extinction: nonrandom disease-associated extinction homogenizes amphibian biotas.

Studying the patterns in which local extinctions occur is critical to understanding how extinctions affect biodiversity at local, regional and global spatial scales. To understand the importance of patterns of extinction at a regional spatial scale, we use data from extirpations associated with a widespread pathogenic agent of amphibian decline, Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd) as a model sy...