Up to 90% of extinctions due to Amazon rainforest loss have yet to occur, a modelling study suggests.
Robert Ewers and his team at Imperial College London in Ascot used deforestation data from 1978 to 2008 — plus data on forest-dependent vertebrates — to create a model that relates species extinction to the timing and amount of habitat loss. The model takes into account the fact that species do not become extinct immediately after losing their habitats and that deforestation happens intermittently, rather than all at once as previous models have assumed. The authors calculated the number of species headed for extinction owing to previous deforestation, or the 'extinction debt': an average of two mammals, four or five birds, and one amphibian for every 2,500 square kilometres.
The team then projected Amazon extinctions up to 2050 on the basis of four scenarios of different levels of forest regulation. They found that in the most likely scenario, 60–70% of expected extinctions would be yet to come as a result of past and future habitat loss.
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Extinctions still to come. Nature 487, 275 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/487275d
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/487275d
