Biological extinction is the irreversible process by which a species, subspecies, or other taxonomic unit ceases to exist, characterized by the disappearance of all viable individuals and the loss of reproductive capacity across its entire geographic range. It results from deterministic factors such as habitat loss, overexploitation, invasive species, and climate change, often interacting with stochastic processes including demographic, environmental, and genetic drift. Extinction operates as a key macroevolutionary filter shaping biodiversity patterns, turnover rates, and phylogenetic structure, and is quantified through extinction rates, selectivity analyses, and models of population viability and metapopulation dynamics across ecological and evolutionary timescales.
Today, oceans host a large variety of fast, resilient marine predators, including tunas, mackerels and various other fish species. Many of these fish belong to a lineage known as Scombridae, whose members are characterized ...
Climate change threatens many plant and animal species not only when their habitats disappear as climatic conditions change, but also when those habitats shift. In a new study, a team of University of Potsdam researchers ...
Plants & Animals
Jul 11, 2026
1
24
A new Stanford-led study offers the clearest picture yet of how some ocean life survived our planet's biggest mass extinction while most animals did not. About 252 million years ago, 96% of marine species and 70% of land ...
Evolution
Jul 10, 2026
0
257
An interdisciplinary team from Florida State University's Department of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Science has uncovered new evidence about processes that may have contributed to ancient mass-extinction events, some of ...
Earth Sciences
Jul 8, 2026
1
159
Scientists are increasingly worried we may be witnessing the start of the "sixth mass extinction"—the first to be caused by human activities.
Paleontology & Fossils
Jul 7, 2026
0
6
When an animal's environment changes faster than the animal can adapt, its chances of survival can flatline. The same is true for populations and even entire species. Now, scientists at MIT and the University of Leicester ...
Evolution
Jun 24, 2026
0
11
New research from the University of St. Andrews has shown that higher extinction risk is associated with a higher frequency of decreasing local prevalence of species, in an analysis of one of the most comprehensive long-term ...
Plants & Animals
Jun 23, 2026
0
9
It's surprising how easy it is to see a koala every day in Australia's major cities. The cute, gray marsupial can be found on T-shirts, hanging off people's bags and pencils, and decorating any decent souvenir shop. But seeing ...
Plants & Animals
Jun 9, 2026
0
7
One of the most devastating extinctions in Earth's history is best known for what didn't die—dinosaurs. But the end-Triassic extinction 201 million years ago wiped out roughly 60% of Earth's species, and scientists are still ...
Earth Sciences
Jun 1, 2026
1
60
On the strictly protected island of Golem Grad in North Macedonia, the tortoises are destroying their own population. During prolonged courtship, aggressive males are exhausting the females and frequently pushing them off ...
Plants & Animals
May 10, 2026
0
83
