University of Arizona Study Finds Slowed Global Extinction Rates Over 500 Years

A recent University of Arizona study by Kristen Saban and John Wiens challenges the prevailing belief that the Earth is currently undergoing a mass extinction event. Their analysis of nearly two million species, focusing on 912 that went extinct over the past 500 years, found that extinction rates peaked about 100 years ago and have since declined across many plant and animal groups, including arthropods and land vertebrates. The study highlights that past extinctions were largely driven by invasive species on islands, whereas the current major threats are habitat destruction and climate change, making it problematic to project past extinction trends into the future. Despite no evidence of increasing extinctions directly attributable to climate change in the last 200 years, researchers caution that this does not diminish its threat going forward. The findings suggest prior forecasts of accelerating extinction rates may rest on flawed assumptions by ignoring the differing factors driving extinctions historically versus today. This new perspective calls for a reassessment of conservation priorities based on more contemporary threats rather than solely on extrapolations from historical data.