Editorial: A Close Look At Extinction Rates

摘要

Extinction is a tough thing to document. This statement seems a bit counter-intuitive at first since surely it must be obvious when a species just disappears from the landscape. After all, I can tell right away when something as small as a measuring spoon is missing from my kitchen. But, like searching for anything that ‘just disappears’, there is a small but non-trivial possibility that the species still exists and we have simply failed to observe it recently (Elphick et al., 2010). Take this problem with one species and multiply it by 1000 and you quickly realize how incredibly difficult it is to document extinction rates within large taxonomic groups such as birds. Clive Hambler and colleagues have not only made an effort to calculate extinction rates for birds, but also for nine other taxonomic groups ranging from mammals to mayflies.