What comes to mind when someone speaks of extinction and radiation? Would evolution of a species be included in this thought? What would cause a species to die off or change? There are many different theories regarding extinction and radiation. Edward O. Wilson, who wore many hats, based his career on the specialization of myrmecology, or the study of ants after mastering this field he thought he would look into human evolution. Edward O. Wilson concluded that in order to understand human evolution and or it humanity we must first look at the first species known to father humanity. The extinction of a species is something that usually happens over time, usually millions of years yet, has been known to happen all of a sudden. Whenever a species becomes extinct there is no way to reverse the extinction. The definition of extinction is a species with the inability to reproduce, survive, or relocate, to a new location in which the species can survive and reproduce. The Devonian Extinction, which …show more content…
Last seen in the Costa Rican cloud forest of Monteverde, this species was first thought to have been extinct due to the effects of man-made global warming. As of 2010 research has shown that global warming, caused by humans, may not be the main or only reason for the golden toad’s extinction. (Curry, 2010 ) Conditions in the Costa Rican rain forests changed in the mid-1980s this is believed to make the rainforests hotter and drier, causing the toad’s susceptibility to the chytrid fungus. At the same time the Costa Rican rain forest changed conditions, humans were creating emissions of greenhouse gases and carbon dioxide into the earth’s atmosphere. Because the golden toad had limited sources of habitats and also a smaller amount of the toad’s population aided in the fatal skin disease causing extinction. The skin disease called Chytridiomycosis caused skin loss, convulsions and death in
In, The Fate of the Earth by, Jonathan Schell, he starts with the extinction of dinosaurs then moves onto how it’s not possible to judge on human extinction. He also talks about how the extinction of animals and how we have learned from our mistakes. He states how we live, then we die. And how different catastrophes could kill everyone or how they could slowly become extinct from those catastrophes. He mainly talks about population and how the extinction of human beings and once we are extinct we are done.
Cane Toads are native to Central and South America but was introduced to Northern Australia. The Cane Toad was brought to Northern Australia to get rid of pests, but instead it became a pest itself. Cane Toads are harming the environment by growing rapidly and wiping out other species. As their population grows they take up more space and resources which also harms other species. The Cane Toads are able to grow rapidly because there aren’t many natural predators, and they poison whatever eats them. Because of those two factors Cane Toads can easily survive.
Poison arrow frogs are one of the most interesting animals of the Amazon rainforest. Poison Arrow Frogs are very colorful. The Poison arrow frogs skin holds all of the poison. Female Poison arrow frogs lay eggs in the water which then turn into tadpoles, when nursing the tadpoles stay on the females back. They’re colorful and vibrant body warn predators to not go near them. Most Poison arrow frogs are a bright colored. The Poison arrow frogs scientific name is Dendrobatidae. Poison arrow frogs are not poisonous in captivity. They gain their poison from bugs and arthropods that they eat. Poison arrow frogs gained their name from indian tribes putting the Poison arrow frogs poison on darts and arrows. Poison arrow frogs are small and about a centimetre tall and wide. The most poisonous part of a poison arrow frog is the Poison arrow frogs skin that can kill a 180 pound 6 ft man but usually it isn’t bad. All Poison frogs are poisonous but only 3 are deadly. The most poisonous and deadly Poison arrow frog is the famous Golden arrow frog. Its poison, Batrachotoxin can kill small animals and humans. As you can see Poison arrow frogs are unique and colorful frogs.
There are several environmental risks that go along with the success of de-extinction. Some risks are that “previously benign organisms could become pests in new environments, prove ideal reservoirs or vectors of nasty plagues, or might even harbor dangerous retroviruses in their genomes.” (Document 4, Lines 24-26). These “new” species could spread foreign diseases throughout the environment and completely kill of other species that don’t have the genetic makeup or immune systems to survive, which is a major risk to the human race as
Habitat destruction, deforestation, ozone depletion, global warming, and poaching. These actions and ecological happenings are creating a world where animals are going extinct at rapid rates. Our world is on the brink of what scientists believe is the sixth mass extinction. Unlike the five previous mass extinction, the latest one killing a majority of the dinosaurs, the main causes for this current extinction are anthropogenic reasons, not natural events.
An invasive species is one that is unknown to an ecosystem that causes economic or environmental harm to human health. A cane toad (Rhinella marina) is a large, poisonous amphibian with dry skin, that moves with small, quick hops. The average adult cane toad is roughly 15 cm. They were originally from Southern U.S. states and South America. Cane toads are most likely to be found in a range of habitats from coastal land to parts of rainforests; however, they are copious in open fields and grasslands. They feed on just about anything that they are able to fit in their mouths, but they usually eat living insects such as beetles, ants, termites, and other bugs. Cane toads adapt well to their environment and they serve as a dominant species in their ecosystem because they have very few
Extinction itself has been going on since there were living things to go extinct; it has been part of Earth’s history from the very beginning, starting from the Cambrian extinction that extinguished 92% of all life on Earth, through the more recent Mesozoic extinction that wiped out the dinosaurs, and finally the pre-Cenozoic extinction that occurred at the end of the last Ice Age. Our planet has lost millions of unique species that will never be seen (outside of the imagination of artists and film special effects specialists) again. Extinction is a normal part of the natural world, and the Earth regularly purges pr...
Extinction is when the birth rate fails to keep up with the death rate, it is
De-extinction is a process that has been experimented with for many years, but has never been completely successful. The ethics and consequences of this idea have been questioned but, de-extinction has the potential to be truly helpful to humans and the environment, and many of the scenarios that people think could happen, are actually impossible. To actually revive a species, there are certain conditions that must be met, and the terrible situations that people think could happen, are unable to actually occur because of the lack of . Bringing species back that are beneficial to the environment could preserve biodiversity, restore diminished ecosystems, advance the science of preventing extinctions, and undo the harm that people have caused in the past. The true potential of the revival of species cannot be realized because people overdramatize the effects and possible outcomes. Once we realize and understand how beneficial the process of de-extinction can be we can better improve our world, our lives, and our ecosystems.
Several mass extinctions have occurred during the Earth’s history. The Cretaceous – Tertiary Boundary (K-T) Extinction caused the loss of at least three-quarters of all species known at that time including the dinosaurs. The cause of this mass extinction is a controversial subject among scientists but the fossil evidence of it’s occurrence is abundant.
Any species which fall into the categories vulnerable, endangered, or critically endangered are considered to be at risk of extinction. Robert Redford said “I think the environment should be put in the category of our national security defense of our resource’s because it’s just as important as defense abroad otherwise what is there to defend?” People should all take the environment more seriously and protect the future for those to come. It’s our responsibility to ensure that the children to come may enjoy all of earth’s beauty, and not through old issues of National Geographic’s.
Extinction, although not as pleasant a concept as the idea of adapting to ones surroundings, plays just as large a role in natural selection as anything else. As one adaptation of a species proves beneficial, and as that variation begins to propagate, the original, less advantageous variant will die off. It is the unchanged species that are in immediate conflict with the species undergoing the natural adaptation that stand to suffer...
Critics claim that species vanish and new ones appear all the time. That’s true, if you’re talking in terms of millennia. Species disappear at an approximate rate of one species per million per year, with new species replacing the lost ones at about the same rate. Although lately humans caused the extinction rate to severely increase, to where entire species are annihilated each day. Nature will take millions of years to repair what is destroyed in just a few decades.
As stated above, there are a multitude of causes for this “mass extinction”, and most all of them are caused by humans. One such causality is overfishing. Everyone loves to eat fish. However, with overfishing, humans are collecting more fish than we can consume as a population. Overfishing is when people collect more fish from the o...