Extinction as a research area encompasses the quantitative and theoretical study of processes leading to the disappearance of species, populations, or lineages, integrating ecology, evolutionary biology, conservation biology, and paleobiology. It investigates drivers such as habitat loss, climate change, overexploitation, invasive species, and stochastic demographic or genetic factors, often using statistical modeling, population viability analysis, phylogenetic methods, and fossil data. The field examines extinction dynamics across temporal and spatial scales, including background and mass extinction rates, extinction selectivity, and cascading ecosystem effects, with applications to biodiversity forecasting, conservation prioritization, and the design of management strategies to reduce extinction risk.
The mass extinction at the boundary between the Cretaceous and Paleogene periods was catastrophic, wiping out much of life on Earth. Vertebrate groups that dominated at the time, such as dinosaurs and many large marine reptiles, ...
Evolution
Mar 25, 2026
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A new study led by University of Colorado Denver has uncovered how climate change and intensifying wildfires are disrupting dragonfly mating traits—threatening to push some species toward local extinction.
Plants & Animals
Sep 10, 2025
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36
Hundreds of species have gone extinct in recent centuries, but losses are few among larger classification levels, meaning we are not witnessing a mass extinction just yet, according to a study published in the open-access ...
Plants & Animals
Sep 4, 2025
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36
Most people are aware that an asteroid wiped out much of life on Earth around 65 million years ago, and this knowledge contributes to that chill of fear that many people experience, at least occasionally, that something like ...
Suppose humanity was faced with an extinction-level event. Not just high odds, but certain-sure. A nearby supernova will explode and irradiate all life, a black hole will engulf the Earth, a Mars-sized interstellar asteroid ...
Astrobiology
Mar 27, 2025
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The most dangerous parts of a supernova explosion are the outputs like X-rays and gamma rays. Even though they only share a small fraction of a supernova's power, they are extremely dangerous. But they're not going to disintegrate ...
Astronomy
Mar 19, 2025
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113
Shine a flashlight into a murky pond water and the beam won't penetrate very far. Absorption and scattering rapidly diminishes the intensity of the light beam, which loses a fixed percentage of energy per unit distance traveled. ...
Nanophysics
Apr 21, 2022
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