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119-407: Extinction is the termination of a taxon by the death of its last member . A taxon may become functionally extinct before the death of its last member if it loses the capacity to reproduce and recover. Because a species' potential range may be very large, determining this moment is difficult, and is usually done retrospectively. This difficulty leads to phenomena such as Lazarus taxa , where

238-437: A food chain who lose their prey. "Species coextinction is a manifestation of one of the interconnectednesses of organisms in complex ecosystems ... While coextinction may not be the most important cause of species extinctions, it is certainly an insidious one." Coextinction is especially common when a keystone species goes extinct. Models suggest that coextinction is the most common form of biodiversity loss . There may be

357-463: A gradualist and colleague of Cuvier, saw the fossils of different life forms as evidence of the mutable character of species. While Lamarck did not deny the possibility of extinction, he believed that it was exceptional and rare and that most of the change in species over time was due to gradual change. Unlike Cuvier, Lamarck was skeptical that catastrophic events of a scale large enough to cause total extinction were possible. In his geological history of

476-664: A nautilus to the Royal Society that was more than two feet in diameter, and morphologically distinct from any known living species. Hooke theorized that this was simply because the species lived in the deep ocean and no one had discovered them yet. While he contended that it was possible a species could be "lost", he thought this highly unlikely. Similarly, in 1695, Sir Thomas Molyneux published an account of enormous antlers found in Ireland that did not belong to any extant taxa in that area. Molyneux reasoned that they came from

595-472: A positive feedback known as a Fisherian runaway . Thus sexual reproduction, as a form of natural selection , has an effect on evolution . Sexual dimorphism is where the basic phenotypic traits vary between males and females of the same species . Dimorphism is found in both sex organs and in secondary sex characteristics , body size, physical strength and morphology, biological ornamentation , behavior and other bodily traits. However, sexual selection

714-414: A species or a population is the variety of genetic information in its living members. A large gene pool (extensive genetic diversity ) is associated with robust populations that can survive bouts of intense selection . Meanwhile, low genetic diversity (see inbreeding and population bottlenecks ) reduces the range of adaptions possible. Replacing native with alien genes narrows genetic diversity within

833-435: A viable population for species preservation and possible future reintroduction to the wild, through use of carefully planned breeding programs . The extinction of one species' wild population can have knock-on effects, causing further extinctions. These are also called "chains of extinction". This is especially common with extinction of keystone species . A 2018 study indicated that the sixth mass extinction started in

952-469: A "good" or "useful" taxon is commonly taken to be one that reflects evolutionary relationships . Many modern systematists, such as advocates of phylogenetic nomenclature , use cladistic methods that require taxa to be monophyletic (all descendants of some ancestor). Therefore, their basic unit, the clade , is equivalent to the taxon, assuming that taxa should reflect evolutionary relationships. Similarly, among those contemporary taxonomists working with

1071-477: A Lazarus species when extant individuals were described in 2019. Attenborough's long-beaked echidna ( Zaglossus attenboroughi ) is an example of a Lazarus species from Papua New Guinea that had last been sighted in 1962 and believed to be possibly extinct, until it was recorded again in November 2023. Some species currently thought to be extinct have had continued speculation that they may still exist, and in

1190-472: A bacterium to bind, take up, and recombine exogenous DNA into its chromosome, it must enter a special physiological state referred to as competence (see Natural competence ). Sexual reproduction in early single-celled eukaryotes may have evolved from bacterial transformation, or from a similar process in archaea (see below). On the other hand, bacterial conjugation is a type of direct transfer of DNA between two bacteria mediated by an external appendage called

1309-502: A cascade of coextinction across the trophic levels . Such effects are most severe in mutualistic and parasitic relationships. An example of coextinction is the Haast's eagle and the moa : the Haast's eagle was a predator that became extinct because its food source became extinct. The moa were several species of flightless birds that were a food source for the Haast's eagle. Extinction as

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1428-429: A common ancestor with modern horses. Pseudoextinction is much easier to demonstrate for larger taxonomic groups. A Lazarus taxon or Lazarus species refers to instances where a species or taxon was thought to be extinct, but was later rediscovered. It can also refer to instances where large gaps in the fossil record of a taxon result in fossils reappearing much later, although the taxon may have ultimately become extinct at

1547-473: A fact that was accepted by most scientists. The primary debate focused on whether this turnover caused by extinction was gradual or abrupt in nature. Cuvier understood extinction to be the result of cataclysmic events that wipe out huge numbers of species, as opposed to the gradual decline of a species over time. His catastrophic view of the nature of extinction garnered him many opponents in the newly emerging school of uniformitarianism . Jean-Baptiste Lamarck ,

1666-403: A haploid spore that grows into the dominant gametophyte form, which is a multicellular haploid body with leaf-like structures that photosynthesize . Haploid gametes are produced in antheridia (male) and archegonia (female) by mitosis. The sperm released from the antheridia respond to chemicals released by ripe archegonia and swim to them in a film of water and fertilize the egg cells thus producing

1785-708: A higher risk of extinction and die out faster than less sexually dimorphic species, the least sexually dimorphic species surviving for millions of years while the most sexually dimorphic species die out within mere thousands of years. Earlier studies based on counting the number of currently living species in modern taxa have shown a higher number of species in more sexually dimorphic taxa which have been interpreted as higher survival in taxa with more sexual selection, but such studies of modern species only measure indirect effects of extinction and are subject to error sources such as dying and doomed taxa speciating more due to splitting of habitat ranges into more small isolated groups during

1904-405: A large range, a lack of individuals of both sexes (in sexually reproducing species), or other reasons. Pinpointing the extinction (or pseudoextinction ) of a species requires a clear definition of that species . If it is to be declared extinct, the species in question must be uniquely distinguishable from any ancestor or daughter species, and from any other closely related species. Extinction of

2023-606: A later point. The coelacanth , a fish related to lungfish and tetrapods , is an example of a Lazarus taxon that was known only from the fossil record and was considered to have been extinct since the end of the Cretaceous Period . In 1938, however, a living specimen was found off the Chalumna River (now Tyolomnqa) on the east coast of South Africa. Calliostoma bullatum , a species of deepwater sea snail originally described from fossils in 1844 proved to be

2142-592: A mathematical model that falls in all positions. By contrast, conservation biology uses the extinction vortex model to classify extinctions by cause. When concerns about human extinction have been raised, for example in Sir Martin Rees ' 2003 book Our Final Hour , those concerns lie with the effects of climate change or technological disaster. Human-driven extinction started as humans migrated out of Africa more than 60,000 years ago. Currently, environmental groups and some governments are concerned with

2261-440: A multicellular gametophyte phase that produces gametes at maturity. The gametophytes of different groups of plants vary in size. Mosses and other pteridophytic plants may have gametophytes consisting of several million cells, while angiosperms have as few as three cells in each pollen grain. Flowering plants are the dominant plant form on land and they reproduce either sexually or asexually. Often their most distinctive feature

2380-475: A narrow set of ranks is challenged by users of cladistics ; for example, the mere 10 ranks traditionally used between animal families (governed by the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN)) and animal phyla (usually the highest relevant rank in taxonomic work) often cannot adequately represent the evolutionary history as more about a lineage's phylogeny becomes known. In addition,

2499-449: A natural part of the evolutionary process. Only recently have extinctions been recorded and scientists have become alarmed at the current high rate of extinctions . Most species that become extinct are never scientifically documented. Some scientists estimate that up to half of presently existing plant and animal species may become extinct by 2100. A 2018 report indicated that the phylogenetic diversity of 300 mammalian species erased during

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2618-441: A new mega-predator or by transporting animals and plants from one part of the world to another. Such introductions have been occurring for thousands of years, sometimes intentionally (e.g. livestock released by sailors on islands as a future source of food) and sometimes accidentally (e.g. rats escaping from boats). In most cases, the introductions are unsuccessful, but when an invasive alien species does become established,

2737-609: A population a higher chance in the short term of surviving an adverse change in conditions. Effects that cause or reward a loss in genetic diversity can increase the chances of extinction of a species. Population bottlenecks can dramatically reduce genetic diversity by severely limiting the number of reproducing individuals and make inbreeding more frequent. Extinction sometimes results for species evolved to specific ecologies that are subjected to genetic pollution —i.e., uncontrolled hybridization , introgression and genetic swamping that lead to homogenization or out-competition from

2856-531: A population because they are better at securing mates for sexual reproduction. It has been described as "a powerful evolutionary force that does not exist in asexual populations". The first fossilized evidence of sexual reproduction in eukaryotes is from the Stenian period, about 1.05 billion years old. Biologists studying evolution propose several explanations for the development of sexual reproduction and its maintenance. These reasons include reducing

2975-406: A race of animals to become extinct. A series of fossils were discovered in the late 17th century that appeared unlike any living species. As a result, the scientific community embarked on a voyage of creative rationalization, seeking to understand what had happened to these species within a framework that did not account for total extinction. In October 1686, Robert Hooke presented an impression of

3094-427: A rank above, the prefix sub- indicates a rank below. In zoology , the prefix infra- indicates a rank below sub- . For instance, among the additional ranks of class are superclass, subclass and infraclass. Rank is relative, and restricted to a particular systematic schema. For example, liverworts have been grouped, in various systems of classification, as a family, order, class, or division (phylum). The use of

3213-501: A reduction in agricultural productivity. Furthermore, increased erosion contributes to poorer water quality by elevating the levels of sediment and pollutants in rivers and streams. Habitat degradation through toxicity can kill off a species very rapidly, by killing all living members through contamination or sterilizing them. It can also occur over longer periods at lower toxicity levels by affecting life span, reproductive capacity, or competitiveness. Habitat degradation can also take

3332-495: A result of climate change has been confirmed by fossil studies. Particularly, the extinction of amphibians during the Carboniferous Rainforest Collapse , 305 million years ago. A 2003 review across 14 biodiversity research centers predicted that, because of climate change, 15–37% of land species would be "committed to extinction" by 2050. The ecologically rich areas that would potentially suffer

3451-400: A single set of chromosomes combines with another gamete to produce a zygote that develops into an organism composed of cells with two sets of chromosomes ( diploid ). This is typical in animals, though the number of chromosome sets and how that number changes in sexual reproduction varies, especially among plants, fungi, and other eukaryotes . In placental mammals , sperm cells exit

3570-478: A species (or replacement by a daughter species) plays a key role in the punctuated equilibrium hypothesis of Stephen Jay Gould and Niles Eldredge . In ecology , extinction is sometimes used informally to refer to local extinction , in which a species ceases to exist in the chosen area of study, despite still existing elsewhere. Local extinctions may be made good by the reintroduction of individuals of that species taken from other locations; wolf reintroduction

3689-439: A species may come suddenly when an otherwise healthy species is wiped out completely, as when toxic pollution renders its entire habitat unliveable; or may occur gradually over thousands or millions of years, such as when a species gradually loses out in competition for food to better adapted competitors. Extinction may occur a long time after the events that set it in motion, a phenomenon known as extinction debt . Assessing

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3808-403: A species or group of species. "Just as each species is unique", write Beverly and Stephen C. Stearns , "so is each extinction ... the causes for each are varied—some subtle and complex, others obvious and simple". Most simply, any species that cannot survive and reproduce in its environment and cannot move to a new environment where it can do so, dies out and becomes extinct. Extinction of

3927-671: A species presumed extinct abruptly "reappears" (typically in the fossil record ) after a period of apparent absence. More than 99% of all species that ever lived on Earth , amounting to over five billion species, are estimated to have died out. It is estimated that there are currently around 8.7 million species of eukaryotes globally, and possibly many times more if microorganisms , like bacteria , are included. Notable extinct animal species include non-avian dinosaurs , saber-toothed cats , dodos , mammoths , ground sloths , thylacines , trilobites , golden toads , and passenger pigeons . Through evolution , species arise through

4046-516: A subsequent report, IPBES listed unsustainable fishing, hunting and logging as being some of the primary drivers of the global extinction crisis. In June 2019, one million species of plants and animals were at risk of extinction. At least 571 plant species have been lost since 1750, but likely many more. The main cause of the extinctions is the destruction of natural habitats by human activities, such as cutting down forests and converting land into fields for farming. A dagger symbol (†) placed next to

4165-473: A unit-based system of biological classification was first made widely available in 1805 in the introduction of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck 's Flore françoise , and Augustin Pyramus de Candolle 's Principes élémentaires de botanique . Lamarck set out a system for the "natural classification" of plants. Since then, systematists continue to construct accurate classifications encompassing the diversity of life; today,

4284-407: A zygote. The zygote divides by mitotic division and grows into a multicellular, diploid sporophyte. The sporophyte produces spore capsules ( sporangia ), which are connected by stalks ( setae ) to the archegonia. The spore capsules produce spores by meiosis and when ripe the capsules burst open to release the spores. Bryophytes show considerable variation in their reproductive structures and the above

4403-444: Is a fitness disadvantage of sexual reproduction. The two-fold cost of sex includes this cost and the fact that any organism can only pass on 50% of its own genes to its offspring. However, one definite advantage of sexual reproduction is that it increases genetic diversity and impedes the accumulation of harmful genetic mutations . Sexual selection is a mode of natural selection in which some individuals out-reproduce others of

4522-400: Is a basic outline. Also in some species each plant is one sex ( dioicous ) while other species produce both sexes on the same plant ( monoicous ). Fungi are classified by the methods of sexual reproduction they employ. The outcome of sexual reproduction most often is the production of resting spores that are used to survive inclement times and to spread. There are typically three phases in

4641-508: Is a transfer of plasmid DNA between bacteria, but the plasmids are rarely incorporated into the bacterial chromosome; and gene transfer and genetic exchange in archaea . Bacterial transformation involves the recombination of genetic material and its function is mainly associated with DNA repair . Bacterial transformation is a complex process encoded by numerous bacterial genes, and is a bacterial adaptation for DNA transfer. This process occurs naturally in at least 40 bacterial species. For

4760-574: Is a unisex species that uses a form of parthenogenesis called gynogenesis , where unfertilized eggs develop into embryos that produce female offspring. Poecilia formosa mate with males of other fish species that use internal fertilization, the sperm does not fertilize the eggs but stimulates the growth of the eggs which develops into embryos. Animals have life cycles with a single diploid multicellular phase that produces haploid gametes directly by meiosis. Male gametes are called sperm, and female gametes are called eggs or ova. In animals, fertilization of

4879-522: Is also evidence to suggest that this event was preceded by another mass extinction, known as Olson's Extinction . The Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event (K–Pg) occurred 66 million years ago, at the end of the Cretaceous period; it is best known for having wiped out non-avian dinosaurs , among many other species. According to a 1998 survey of 400 biologists conducted by New York 's American Museum of Natural History , nearly 70% believed that

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4998-444: Is an example of this. Species that are not globally extinct are termed extant . Those species that are extant, yet are threatened with extinction, are referred to as threatened or endangered species . Currently, an important aspect of extinction is human attempts to preserve critically endangered species. These are reflected by the creation of the conservation status "extinct in the wild" (EW) . Species listed under this status by

5117-568: Is believed to have developed in an ancient eukaryotic ancestor. In eukaryotes, diploid precursor cells divide to produce haploid cells in a process called meiosis . In meiosis, DNA is replicated to produce a total of four copies of each chromosome. This is followed by two cell divisions to generate haploid gametes. After the DNA is replicated in meiosis, the homologous chromosomes pair up so that their DNA sequences are aligned with each other. During this period before cell divisions, genetic information

5236-585: Is difficult to demonstrate unless one has a strong chain of evidence linking a living species to members of a pre-existing species. For example, it is sometimes claimed that the extinct Hyracotherium , which was an early horse that shares a common ancestor with the modern horse , is pseudoextinct, rather than extinct, because there are several extant species of Equus , including zebra and donkey ; however, as fossil species typically leave no genetic material behind, one cannot say whether Hyracotherium evolved into more modern horse species or merely evolved from

5355-399: Is entirely beneficial. Larger populations appear to respond more quickly to some of the benefits obtained through sexual reproduction than do smaller population sizes. However, newer models presented in recent years suggest a basic advantage for sexual reproduction in slowly reproducing complex organisms . Sexual reproduction allows these species to exhibit characteristics that depend on

5474-412: Is estimated as 100 to 1,000 times "background" rates (the average extinction rates in the evolutionary time scale of planet Earth), faster than at any other time in human history, while future rates are likely 10,000 times higher. However, some groups are going extinct much faster. Biologists Paul R. Ehrlich and Stuart Pimm , among others, contend that human population growth and overconsumption are

5593-431: Is exchanged between homologous chromosomes in genetic recombination . Homologous chromosomes contain highly similar but not identical information, and by exchanging similar but not identical regions, genetic recombination increases genetic diversity among future generations. During sexual reproduction, two haploid gametes combine into one diploid cell known as a zygote in a process called fertilization . The nuclei from

5712-448: Is no longer able to survive and becomes extinct. This may occur by direct effects, such as the environment becoming toxic , or indirectly, by limiting a species' ability to compete effectively for diminished resources or against new competitor species. Habitat destruction, particularly the removal of vegetation that stabilizes soil, enhances erosion and diminishes nutrient availability in terrestrial ecosystems. This degradation can lead to

5831-595: Is only implied over an extended period of time leading to sexual dimorphism. A few arthropods, such as barnacles , are hermaphroditic , that is, each can have the organs of both sexes . However, individuals of most species remain of one sex their entire lives. A few species of insects and crustaceans can reproduce by parthenogenesis , especially if conditions favor a "population explosion". However, most arthropods rely on sexual reproduction, and parthenogenetic species often revert to sexual reproduction when conditions become less favorable. The ability to undergo meiosis

5950-591: Is the destruction of ocean floors by bottom trawling . Diminished resources or introduction of new competitor species also often accompany habitat degradation. Global warming has allowed some species to expand their range, bringing competition to other species that previously occupied that area. Sometimes these new competitors are predators and directly affect prey species, while at other times they may merely outcompete vulnerable species for limited resources. Vital resources including water and food can also be limited during habitat degradation, leading to extinction. In

6069-524: Is the most important determinant of genus extinction at background rates but becomes increasingly irrelevant as mass extinction arises. Limited geographic range is a cause both of small population size and of greater vulnerability to local environmental catastrophes. Extinction rates can be affected not just by population size, but by any factor that affects evolvability , including balancing selection , cryptic genetic variation , phenotypic plasticity , and robustness . A diverse or deep gene pool gives

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6188-412: Is their reproductive organs, commonly called flowers. The anther produces pollen grains which contain the male gametophytes that produce sperm nuclei. For pollination to occur, pollen grains must attach to the stigma of the female reproductive structure ( carpel ), where the female gametophytes are located within ovules enclose within the ovary . After the pollen tube grows through the carpel's style,

6307-459: Is widespread among arthropods including both those that reproduce sexually and those that reproduce parthenogenetically . Although meiosis is a major characteristic of arthropods, understanding of its fundamental adaptive benefit has long been regarded as an unresolved problem, that appears to have remained unsettled. Aquatic arthropods may breed by external fertilization, as for example horseshoe crabs do, or by internal fertilization , where

6426-525: The International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (1999) defines a A taxon can be assigned a taxonomic rank , usually (but not necessarily) when it is given a formal name. " Phylum " applies formally to any biological domain , but traditionally it was always used for animals, whereas "division" was traditionally often used for plants , fungi , etc. A prefix is used to indicate a ranking of lesser importance. The prefix super- indicates

6545-482: The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) are not known to have any living specimens in the wild and are maintained only in zoos or other artificial environments. Some of these species are functionally extinct, as they are no longer part of their natural habitat and it is unlikely the species will ever be restored to the wild. When possible, modern zoological institutions try to maintain

6664-481: The Late Pleistocene could take up to 5 to 7 million years to restore mammal diversity to what it was before the human era. Extinction of a parent species where daughter species or subspecies are still extant is called pseudoextinction or phyletic extinction. Effectively, the old taxon vanishes, transformed ( anagenesis ) into a successor, or split into more than one ( cladogenesis ). Pseudoextinction

6783-560: The gametophyte , which produces gametes directly by mitosis. This type of life cycle, involving alternation between two multicellular phases, the sexual haploid gametophyte and asexual diploid sporophyte, is known as alternation of generations . The evolution of sexual reproduction is considered paradoxical, because asexual reproduction should be able to outperform it as every young organism created can bear its own young. This implies that an asexual population has an intrinsic capacity to grow more rapidly with each generation. This 50% cost

6902-410: The ova remain in the female's body and the sperm must somehow be inserted. All known terrestrial arthropods use internal fertilization. Opiliones (harvestmen), millipedes , and some crustaceans use modified appendages such as gonopods or penises to transfer the sperm directly to the female. However, most male terrestrial arthropods produce spermatophores , waterproof packets of sperm , which

7021-896: The penis through the male urethra and enter the vagina during copulation , while egg cells enter the uterus through the oviduct . Other vertebrates of both sexes possess a cloaca for the release of sperm or egg cells. Sexual reproduction is the most common life cycle in multicellular eukaryotes, such as animals , fungi and plants . Sexual reproduction also occurs in some unicellular eukaryotes. Sexual reproduction does not occur in prokaryotes , unicellular organisms without cell nuclei , such as bacteria and archaea . However, some processes in bacteria, including bacterial conjugation , transformation and transduction , may be considered analogous to sexual reproduction in that they incorporate new genetic information. Some proteins and other features that are key for sexual reproduction may have arisen in bacteria, but sexual reproduction

7140-420: The sex cell nuclei from the pollen grain migrate into the ovule to fertilize the egg cell and endosperm nuclei within the female gametophyte in a process termed double fertilization . The resulting zygote develops into an embryo, while the triploid endosperm (one sperm cell plus two female cells) and female tissues of the ovule give rise to the surrounding tissues in the developing seed. The ovary, which produced

7259-507: The sex organs present although not reproductively functional. After several months or years, depending on the species, the sex organs develop further to maturity and the animal becomes sexually mature . Most female mammals are only fertile during certain periods during their estrous cycle, at which point they are ready to mate. For most mammals, males and females exchange sexual partners throughout their adult lives . The vast majority of fish species lay eggs that are then fertilized by

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7378-408: The slender-billed curlew ( Numenius tenuirostris ), not seen since 2007. As long as species have been evolving, species have been going extinct. It is estimated that over 99.9% of all species that ever lived are extinct. The average lifespan of a species is 1–10 million years, although this varies widely between taxa. A variety of causes can contribute directly or indirectly to the extinction of

7497-483: The strata of the Paris basin. They saw alternating saltwater and freshwater deposits, as well as patterns of the appearance and disappearance of fossils throughout the record. From these patterns, Cuvier inferred historic cycles of catastrophic flooding, extinction, and repopulation of the earth with new species. Cuvier's fossil evidence showed that very different life forms existed in the past than those that exist today,

7616-637: The 20 biodiversity goals laid out by the Aichi Biodiversity Targets in 2010, only 6 were "partially achieved" by the deadline of 2020. The report warned that biodiversity will continue to decline if the status quo is not changed, in particular the "currently unsustainable patterns of production and consumption, population growth and technological developments". In a 2021 report published in the journal Frontiers in Conservation Science , some top scientists asserted that even if

7735-449: The Aichi Biodiversity Targets set for 2020 had been achieved, it would not have resulted in a significant mitigation of biodiversity loss. They added that failure of the global community to reach these targets is hardly surprising given that biodiversity loss is "nowhere close to the top of any country's priorities, trailing far behind other concerns such as employment, healthcare, economic growth, or currency stability." For much of history,

7854-616: The Earth is currently in the early stages of a human-caused mass extinction, known as the Holocene extinction . In that survey, the same proportion of respondents agreed with the prediction that up to 20% of all living populations could become extinct within 30 years (by 2028). A 2014 special edition of Science declared there is widespread consensus on the issue of human-driven mass species extinctions. A 2020 study published in PNAS stated that

7973-580: The North American moose and that the animal had once been common on the British Isles . Rather than suggest that this indicated the possibility of species going extinct, he argued that although organisms could become locally extinct, they could never be entirely lost and would continue to exist in some unknown region of the globe. The antlers were later confirmed to be from the extinct deer Megaloceros . Hooke and Molyneux's line of thinking

8092-519: The Paris basin, could be formed by a slow rise and fall of sea levels . The concept of extinction was integral to Charles Darwin 's On the Origin of Species , with less fit lineages disappearing over time. For Darwin, extinction was a constant side effect of competition . Because of the wide reach of On the Origin of Species , it was widely accepted that extinction occurred gradually and evenly (a concept now referred to as background extinction ). It

8211-749: The United States government, to force the removal of Native Americans , many of whom relied on the bison for food. Taxon Initial attempts at classifying and ordering organisms (plants and animals) were presumably set forth in prehistoric times by hunter-gatherers, as suggested by the fairly sophisticated folk taxonomies. Much later, Aristotle, and later still, European scientists, like Magnol , Tournefort and Carl Linnaeus 's system in Systema Naturae , 10th edition (1758), , as well as an unpublished work by Bernard and Antoine Laurent de Jussieu , contributed to this field. The idea of

8330-428: The accumulation of slightly deleterious mutations , then a population will go extinct. Smaller populations have fewer beneficial mutations entering the population each generation, slowing adaptation. It is also easier for slightly deleterious mutations to fix in small populations; the resulting positive feedback loop between small population size and low fitness can cause mutational meltdown . Limited geographic range

8449-468: The application of names to clades . Many cladists do not see any need to depart from traditional nomenclature as governed by the ICZN, International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants , etc. Sexual reproduction Sexual reproduction is a type of reproduction that involves a complex life cycle in which a gamete ( haploid reproductive cells, such as a sperm or egg cell ) with

8568-516: The class rank is quite often not an evolutionary but a phenetic or paraphyletic group and as opposed to those ranks governed by the ICZN (family-level, genus-level and species -level taxa), can usually not be made monophyletic by exchanging the taxa contained therein. This has given rise to phylogenetic taxonomy and the ongoing development of the PhyloCode , which has been proposed as a new alternative to replace Linnean classification and govern

8687-783: The conjugation pilus. Bacterial conjugation is controlled by plasmid genes that are adapted for spreading copies of the plasmid between bacteria. The infrequent integration of a plasmid into a host bacterial chromosome, and the subsequent transfer of a part of the host chromosome to another cell do not appear to be bacterial adaptations. Exposure of hyperthermophilic archaeal Sulfolobus species to DNA damaging conditions induces cellular aggregation accompanied by high frequency genetic marker exchange Ajon et al. hypothesized that this cellular aggregation enhances species-specific DNA repair by homologous recombination. DNA transfer in Sulfolobus may be an early form of sexual interaction similar to

8806-600: The consequences can be catastrophic. Invasive alien species can affect native species directly by eating them, competing with them, and introducing pathogens or parasites that sicken or kill them; or indirectly by destroying or degrading their habitat. Human populations may themselves act as invasive predators. According to the "overkill hypothesis", the swift extinction of the megafauna in areas such as Australia (40,000 years before present), North and South America (12,000 years before present), Madagascar , Hawaii (AD 300–1000), and New Zealand (AD 1300–1500), resulted from

8925-415: The contemporary extinction crisis "may be the most serious environmental threat to the persistence of civilization, because it is irreversible." Biologist E. O. Wilson estimated in 2002 that if current rates of human destruction of the biosphere continue, one-half of all plant and animal species of life on earth will be extinct in 100 years. More significantly, the current rate of global species extinctions

9044-476: The deliberate destruction of some species, such as dangerous viruses , and the total destruction of other problematic species has been suggested. Other species were deliberately driven to extinction, or nearly so, due to poaching or because they were "undesirable", or to push for other human agendas. One example was the near extinction of the American bison , which was nearly wiped out by mass hunts sanctioned by

9163-436: The earth titled Hydrogeologie, Lamarck instead argued that the surface of the earth was shaped by gradual erosion and deposition by water, and that species changed over time in response to the changing environment. Charles Lyell , a noted geologist and founder of uniformitarianism , believed that past processes should be understood using present day processes. Like Lamarck, Lyell acknowledged that extinction could occur, noting

9282-464: The eggs are fertilized within the female and the eggs simply hatch within the female body, or in seahorses , the male carries the developing young within a pouch, and gives birth to live young. Fishes can also be viviparous , where the female supplies nourishment to the internally growing offspring. Some fish are hermaphrodites , where a single fish is both male and female and can produce eggs and sperm. In hermaphroditic fish, some are male and female at

9401-401: The endangered wild water buffalo is most threatened with extinction by genetic pollution from the abundant domestic water buffalo ). Such extinctions are not always apparent from morphological (non-genetic) observations. Some degree of gene flow is a normal evolutionary process; nevertheless, hybridization (with or without introgression) threatens rare species' existence. The gene pool of

9520-591: The event of rediscovery would be considered Lazarus species. Examples include the thylacine , or Tasmanian tiger ( Thylacinus cynocephalus ), the last known example of which died in Hobart Zoo in Tasmania in 1936; the Japanese wolf ( Canis lupus hodophilax ), last sighted over 100 years ago; the American ivory-billed woodpecker ( Campephilus principalis ), with the last universally accepted sighting in 1944; and

9639-438: The extinction crisis. According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), 784 extinctions have been recorded since the year 1500, the arbitrary date selected to define "recent" extinctions, up to the year 2004; with many more likely to have gone unnoticed. Several species have also been listed as extinct since 2004. If adaptation increasing population fitness is slower than environmental degradation plus

9758-474: The extinction of species caused by humanity, and they try to prevent further extinctions through a variety of conservation programs. Humans can cause extinction of a species through overharvesting , pollution , habitat destruction , introduction of invasive species (such as new predators and food competitors ), overhunting, and other influences. Explosive, unsustainable human population growth and increasing per capita consumption are essential drivers of

9877-423: The female gametophyte(s), then grows into a fruit , which surrounds the seed(s). Plants may either self-pollinate or cross-pollinate . In 2013, flowers dating from the Cretaceous (100 million years before present) were found encased in amber, the oldest evidence of sexual reproduction in a flowering plant. Microscopic images showed tubes growing out of pollen and penetrating the flower's stigma. The pollen

9996-494: The females take into their bodies. A few such species rely on females to find spermatophores that have already been deposited on the ground, but in most cases males only deposit spermatophores when complex courtship rituals look likely to be successful. Insect species make up more than two-thirds of all extant animal species. Most insect species reproduce sexually, though some species are facultatively parthenogenetic . Many insect species have sexual dimorphism , while in others

10115-540: The field of zoology , and biology in general, and has also become an area of concern outside the scientific community. A number of organizations, such as the Worldwide Fund for Nature , have been created with the goal of preserving species from extinction. Governments have attempted, through enacting laws, to avoid habitat destruction, agricultural over-harvesting, and pollution . While many human-caused extinctions have been accidental, humans have also engaged in

10234-434: The form of a physical destruction of niche habitats. The widespread destruction of tropical rainforests and replacement with open pastureland is widely cited as an example of this; elimination of the dense forest eliminated the infrastructure needed by many species to survive. For example, a fern that depends on dense shade for protection from direct sunlight can no longer survive without forest to shelter it. Another example

10353-405: The formation of a zygote, and varying degrees of development, in many species the eggs are deposited outside the female; while in others, they develop further within the female and the young are born live. There are three extant kinds of mammals: monotremes , placentals and marsupials , all with internal fertilization. In placental mammals, offspring are born as juveniles: complete animals with

10472-409: The gametes fuse, and each gamete contributes half of the genetic material of the zygote. Multiple cell divisions by mitosis (without change in the number of chromosomes) then develop into a multicellular diploid phase or generation. In plants, the diploid phase, known as the sporophyte , produces spores by meiosis. These spores then germinate and divide by mitosis to form a haploid multicellular phase,

10591-579: The habitat retreat of taxa approaching extinction. Possible causes of the higher extinction risk in species with more sexual selection shown by the comprehensive fossil studies that rule out such error sources include expensive sexually selected ornaments having negative effects on the ability to survive natural selection , as well as sexual selection removing a diversity of genes that under current ecological conditions are neutral for natural selection but some of which may be important for surviving climate change. There have been at least five mass extinctions in

10710-674: The heaviest losses include the Cape Floristic Region and the Caribbean Basin . These areas might see a doubling of present carbon dioxide levels and rising temperatures that could eliminate 56,000 plant and 3,700 animal species. Climate change has also been found to be a factor in habitat loss and desertification . Studies of fossils following species from the time they evolved to their extinction show that species with high sexual dimorphism , especially characteristics in males that are used to compete for mating, are at

10829-445: The history of life on earth, and four in the last 350 million years in which many species have disappeared in a relatively short period of geological time. A massive eruptive event that released large quantities of tephra particles into the atmosphere is considered to be one likely cause of the " Permian–Triassic extinction event " about 250 million years ago, which is estimated to have killed 90% of species then existing. There

10948-471: The human era since the Late Pleistocene would require 5 to 7 million years to recover. According to the 2019 Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services by IPBES , the biomass of wild mammals has fallen by 82%, natural ecosystems have lost about half their area and a million species are at risk of extinction—all largely as a result of human actions. Twenty-five percent of plant and animal species are threatened with extinction. In

11067-429: The introduced ( or hybrid ) species. Endemic populations can face such extinctions when new populations are imported or selectively bred by people, or when habitat modification brings previously isolated species into contact. Extinction is likeliest for rare species coming into contact with more abundant ones; interbreeding can swamp the rarer gene pool and create hybrids, depleting the purebred gene pool (for example,

11186-421: The likelihood of the accumulation of deleterious mutations, increasing rate of adaptation to changing environments , dealing with competition , DNA repair , masking deleterious mutations, and reducing genetic variation on the genomic level. All of these ideas about why sexual reproduction has been maintained are generally supported, but ultimately the size of the population determines if sexual reproduction

11305-482: The main drivers of the modern extinction crisis. In January 2020, the UN's Convention on Biological Diversity drafted a plan to mitigate the contemporary extinction crisis by establishing a deadline of 2030 to protect 30% of the Earth's land and oceans and reduce pollution by 50%, with the goal of allowing for the restoration of ecosystems by 2050. The 2020 United Nations ' Global Biodiversity Outlook report stated that of

11424-454: The male. Some species lay their eggs on a substrate like a rock or on plants, while others scatter their eggs and the eggs are fertilized as they drift or sink in the water column. Some fish species use internal fertilization and then disperse the developing eggs or give birth to live offspring. Fish that have live-bearing offspring include the guppy and mollies or Poecilia . Fishes that give birth to live young can be ovoviviparous , where

11543-420: The modern understanding of extinction as the end of a species was incompatible with the prevailing worldview. Prior to the 19th century, much of Western society adhered to the belief that the world was created by God and as such was complete and perfect. This concept reached its heyday in the 1700s with the peak popularity of a theological concept called the great chain of being , in which all life on earth, from

11662-414: The most plausible reason for maintaining this capability is the benefit of repairing DNA damage , caused by a variety of stresses, through recombination that occurs during meiosis . Three distinct processes in prokaryotes are regarded as similar to eukaryotic sex : bacterial transformation , which involves the incorporation of foreign DNA into the bacterial chromosome; bacterial conjugation , which

11781-490: The name of a species or other taxon normally indicates its status as extinct. Examples of species and subspecies that are extinct include: A species is extinct when the last existing member dies. Extinction therefore becomes a certainty when there are no surviving individuals that can reproduce and create a new generation. A species may become functionally extinct when only a handful of individuals survive, which cannot reproduce due to poor health, age, sparse distribution over

11900-469: The natural course of events, species become extinct for a number of reasons, including but not limited to: extinction of a necessary host, prey or pollinator, interspecific competition , inability to deal with evolving diseases and changing environmental conditions (particularly sudden changes) which can act to introduce novel predators, or to remove prey. Recently in geological time, humans have become an additional cause of extinction of some species, either as

12019-409: The original population, thereby increasing the chance of extinction. Habitat degradation is currently the main anthropogenic cause of species extinctions. The main cause of habitat degradation worldwide is agriculture, with urban sprawl , logging, mining, and some fishing practices close behind. The degradation of a species' habitat may alter the fitness landscape to such an extent that the species

12138-453: The ovum by a sperm results in the formation of a diploid zygote that develops by repeated mitotic divisions into a diploid adult. Plants have two multicellular life-cycle phases, resulting in an alternation of generations . Plant zygotes germinate and divide repeatedly by mitosis to produce a diploid multicellular organism known as the sporophyte. The mature sporophyte produces haploid spores by meiosis that germinate and divide by mitosis to form

12257-700: The process of speciation —where new varieties of organisms arise and thrive when they are able to find and exploit an ecological niche —and species become extinct when they are no longer able to survive in changing conditions or against superior competition . The relationship between animals and their ecological niches has been firmly established. A typical species becomes extinct within 10 million years of its first appearance, although some species, called living fossils , survive with little to no morphological change for hundreds of millions of years. Mass extinctions are relatively rare events; however, isolated extinctions of species and clades are quite common, and are

12376-409: The relative importance of genetic factors compared to environmental ones as the causes of extinction has been compared to the debate on nature and nurture . The question of whether more extinctions in the fossil record have been caused by evolution or by competition or by predation or by disease or by catastrophe is a subject of discussion; Mark Newman, the author of Modeling Extinction , argues for

12495-415: The same or different plants. After rains or when dew deposits a film of water, the motile sperm are splashed away from the antheridia, which are normally produced on the top side of the thallus, and swim in the film of water to the archegonia where they fertilize the egg. To promote out crossing or cross fertilization the sperm are released before the eggs are receptive of the sperm, making it more likely that

12614-402: The same time while in other fish they are serially hermaphroditic; starting as one sex and changing to the other. In at least one hermaphroditic species, self-fertilization occurs when the eggs and sperm are released together. Internal self-fertilization may occur in some other species. One fish species does not reproduce by sexual reproduction but uses sex to produce offspring; Poecilia formosa

12733-450: The sexes look nearly identical. Typically they have two sexes with males producing spermatozoa and females ova. The ova develop into eggs that have a covering called the chorion , which forms before internal fertilization. Insects have very diverse mating and reproductive strategies most often resulting in the male depositing a spermatophore within the female, which she stores until she is ready for egg fertilization. After fertilization, and

12852-477: The sexual reproduction of fungi: plasmogamy , karyogamy and meiosis . The cytoplasm of two parent cells fuse during plasmogamy and the nuclei fuse during karyogamy. New haploid gametes are formed during meiosis and develop into spores. The adaptive basis for the maintenance of sexual reproduction in the Ascomycota and Basidiomycota ( dikaryon ) fungi was reviewed by Wallen and Perlin. They concluded that

12971-405: The specific environment that they inhabit, and the particular survival strategies that they employ. In order to reproduce sexually, both males and females need to find a mate . Generally in animals mate choice is made by females while males compete to be chosen. This can lead organisms to extreme efforts in order to reproduce, such as combat and display, or produce extreme features caused by

13090-541: The sperm will fertilize the eggs of different thallus. After fertilization, a zygote is formed which grows into a new sporophytic plant. The condition of having separate sporophyte and gametophyte plants is called alternation of generations . The bryophytes , which include liverworts , hornworts and mosses , reproduce both sexually and vegetatively . They are small plants found growing in moist locations and like ferns, have motile sperm with flagella and need water to facilitate sexual reproduction. These plants start as

13209-429: The sudden introduction of human beings to environments full of animals that had never seen them before and were therefore completely unadapted to their predation techniques. Coextinction refers to the loss of a species due to the extinction of another; for example, the extinction of parasitic insects following the loss of their hosts. Coextinction can also occur when a species loses its pollinator , or to predators in

13328-407: The tiniest microorganism to God, is linked in a continuous chain. The extinction of a species was impossible under this model, as it would create gaps or missing links in the chain and destroy the natural order. Thomas Jefferson was a firm supporter of the great chain of being and an opponent of extinction, famously denying the extinction of the woolly mammoth on the grounds that nature never allows

13447-564: The total extinction of the dodo and the extirpation of indigenous horses to the British Isles. He similarly argued against mass extinctions , believing that any extinction must be a gradual process. Lyell also showed that Cuvier's original interpretation of the Parisian strata was incorrect. Instead of the catastrophic floods inferred by Cuvier, Lyell demonstrated that patterns of saltwater and freshwater deposits , like those seen in

13566-493: The traditional Linnean (binomial) nomenclature, few propose taxa they know to be paraphyletic . An example of a long-established taxon that is not also a clade is the class Reptilia , the reptiles; birds and mammals are the descendants of animals traditionally classed as reptiles, but neither is included in the Reptilia (birds are traditionally placed in the class Aves , and mammals in the class Mammalia ). The term taxon

13685-577: The wider scientific community of his theory. Cuvier was a well-regarded geologist, lauded for his ability to reconstruct the anatomy of an unknown species from a few fragments of bone. His primary evidence for extinction came from mammoth skulls found in the Paris basin . Cuvier recognized them as distinct from any known living species of elephant, and argued that it was highly unlikely such an enormous animal would go undiscovered. In 1812, Cuvier, along with Alexandre Brongniart and Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire , mapped

13804-488: Was difficult to disprove. When parts of the world had not been thoroughly examined and charted, scientists could not rule out that animals found only in the fossil record were not simply "hiding" in unexplored regions of the Earth. Georges Cuvier is credited with establishing the modern conception of extinction in a 1796 lecture to the French Institute , though he would spend most of his career trying to convince

13923-598: Was first used in 1926 by Adolf Meyer-Abich for animal groups, as a back-formation from the word taxonomy ; the word taxonomy had been coined a century before from the Greek components τάξις ( táxis ), meaning "arrangement", and νόμος ( nómos ), meaning " method ". For plants, it was proposed by Herman Johannes Lam in 1948, and it was adopted at the VII International Botanical Congress , held in 1950. The glossary of

14042-429: Was not until 1982, when David Raup and Jack Sepkoski published their seminal paper on mass extinctions, that Cuvier was vindicated and catastrophic extinction was accepted as an important mechanism. The current understanding of extinction is a synthesis of the cataclysmic extinction events proposed by Cuvier, and the background extinction events proposed by Lyell and Darwin. Extinction is an important research topic in

14161-424: Was sticky, suggesting it was carried by insects. Ferns produce large diploid sporophytes with rhizomes , roots and leaves. Fertile leaves produce sporangia that contain haploid spores . The spores are released and germinate to produce small, thin gametophytes that are typically heart shaped and green in color. The gametophyte prothalli , produce motile sperm in the antheridia and egg cells in archegonia on

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