Nearly half the world's species in decline worldwide: Study

By Al Mayadeen English
Source: Agencies
23 May 12:01

Researchers warn that the global biodiversity loss caused by human industry is far more serious than previously imagined.

Rokan, a male Sumatran tiger, lays in the grass at the US National Zoo in Washington. (Reuters)

Over half of all animal species on the planet's surface are experiencing declines in their population sizes, new research revealed.

The paper, which was released on Tuesday, analyzes variations in population densities of more than 70,000 animal species from throughout the world over time, making it the most extensive study of its type to date.

The findings, according to the researchers from Queen's University Belfast, constitute a "drastic warning", since global biodiversity loss due to the human industry is far more frightening than previously assumed.

They discovered that 48% of the species on Earth are now experiencing population decline, while fewer than 3% are experiencing population growth.

The extent to which species become extinct has historically been quantified by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature's (IUCN) danger conservation categories, which discovered that 28% of life on Earth is now threatened with extinction.

The latest study, on the other hand, employed a global-scale examination of a different metric of extinction danger, which is "population trends".

The researchers discovered that the size of the extinction problem is far greater than indicated by the usual danger category-based approach.

They also discovered that 33% of species now classified as "safe" under the IUCN conservation categories are in reality on the verge of extinction.

Meanwhile, the lack of species with expanding numbers indicates that other species are not developing to fill the place of extinct species in the environment, according to the findings.

“This new study method and global-scale analysis provide a clearer picture about the true extent of global erosion of biodiversity that the traditional approach cannot offer,” Dr. Daniel Pincheira-Donoso, senior lecturer in evolutionary biology and macroecology at Queen’s University Belfast, said.

“Our work is a drastic alert about the current magnitude of this crisis that has already devastating impacts on the stability of nature as a whole, and on human health and wellbeing,” Pincheira-Donoso added.

Catherine Finn, a Ph.D. student at Queen’s University Belfast and a leading author on the research, said, “Almost half of animals on Earth for which assessments are available are currently declining."

“To make matters worse, many of the animal species that are thought to be non-threatened from extinction, are in fact progressively declining,” Finn added.

Global biodiversity loss is seen as one of humanity's most critical issues in the future decades, impacting ecosystem functioning, food supply, disease transmission, and global economic stability.