Local extinction and ecological re-entry of early Eocene mammals

Multiple ecological pathways to extinction in mammals.

As human population and resource demands continue to grow, biodiversity conservation has never been more critical. About one-quarter of all mammals are in danger of extinction, and more than half of all mammal populations are in decline. A major priority for conservation science is to understand the ecological traits that predict extinction risk and the interactions among those predictors that ...

Ecological predictors of extinction risks of endemic mammals of China.

In this brief report, we analyzed ecological correlates of risk of extinction for mammals endemic to China using phylogenetic eigenvector methods to control for the effect of phylogenetic inertia. Extinction risks were based on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List and ecological explanatory attributes that include range size and climatic variables. When the effect ...

Sampling and Faunal Turnover in Early Eocene Mammals

Badgley, C. and Gingerich, P. D., 1988. Sampling and faunal turnover in Early Eocene mammals. Palaeogeogr., Palaeoclimatol., Palaeoecol., 63: 141-157. Faunal turnovers in the fossil record are episodes of synchronous appearance and disappearance of species from a community, often resulting in net change in species richness. We studied the biostratigraphic record of faunal turnover involving ear...

Paratropical floral extinction in the Late Palaeocene–Early Eocene

The Palaeocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) at c. 55.8 Ma marks a transient (c. 100 ka duration) interval of rapid greenhouse warming that had profound effects on marine and terrestrial biota. Plant communities responded rapidly with major compositional turnover. The long-term effects on tropical vegetation communities that stem from the brief period of global warming are unclear. We present p...

Ecological Consequences of Extinction Ecological Consequences of Extinction