World's oceans move into 'extinction phase'

Cool sounding movie, gonna search for and watch it!!

didnt need no experts to tell me the worlds eco system is falling apart i mean think about the over a hundred species going extinct in a rainforest each day

how do you know this? seems to be a wild claim.

The background extinction rate, based on fossil evidence is between 10 and 100 species per year. But this is only for species that leave fossil records. The true background rate, is undoubtedly much higher. The current extinction rate is about 27,000 species per year. That's about 74 species per day. So, you're right: 100 species per day is exaggerated, but is that enough to call it a "wild claim?" Most of the 27,000 species are tropical insects, particularly in the Amazon Basin. Habitat loss seems to be the major cause. Marine ecosystems are less well-known, so lo... [More]

how do you know this? think about how you would even measure this. it would be a huge undertaking to take even one reliable measurement, let alone continous measurements. given the standard of what gets published these days and the huge rise in retractions of scientific papers, I'd take that figure with a pinch of salt.

Doug explained this. It is an estimate based on the relative proportions of different phyla of species. You are correct in saying that it would be nearly impossible to directly correctly count - but if we have direct observations of the higher phyla we can make a very educated guess based on relative proportions of phyla. Since over 2/3 of all higher species are insects, we can reasonably estimate the loss of those insect species by direct observation of the loss of mammals and birds. These estimates are bolstered by direct measurements of habitat loss (tropical rain forest mainly) and the k... [More]

For beetles: Pick 100 overstory trees in the Amazon rain forest. Place cone-shaped collectors in a grid pattern on the ground. Fog the trees with insecticide. Collect the cones and see what beetles/insects you have collected. Wait a few years, then repeat the process. Wait a few more years, then do it again. Then wait a few more years and do it again. Now you have enough data to model some population dynamics of species that show declining numbers. Do any of them fit a decay curve? Monitor those species using pheromone traps in likely spots. If they come up negative, repeat over l... [More]

Species–area relationships always overestimate extinction rates from habitat loss Extinction from habitat loss is the signature conservation problem of the twenty-first century. Despite its importance, estimating extinction rates is still highly uncertain because no proven direct methods or reliable data exist for verifying extinctions... http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v473/n7347/full/nature09985.html from wikipedia:

If this is similar to every other mass extinction in history, then I would think humans are not responsible.

Red Tide, fun times ahead.