Word: extinctions
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...notes in Diversity that the 1.5 million species named so far by scientists represent only a tiny fraction of the tens of millions that may be out there. Wilson's prediction that 30% to 50% of all species would be extinct by the middle of the 21st century was meant to provoke--and it did. Critics rejected the estimate as another one of his flamboyant speculations. But subsequent research has supported it. From the perspective of the biodiversity scientist, virtually all the signs...
...Wilson predicted in his book “The Diversity of Life” that 30 to 50 percent of all species would be extinct by the middle of the 21st century. His warnings were initially criticized but eventually were supported with research...
...today. As a result, the area was cooler and wetter and overgrown with trees, bushes and patches of grass. These fertile woodlands were rich in wildlife. Primitive elephants, giant bears, horses, rhinos, pigs, rats and monkeys lived here, along with dozens of other mammal species long since extinct...
...through the trees across the river from his orangutans' forest habitat. And every day the fighting between Acehnese rebels and the army moved closer; mutilated bodies sometimes were found dumped in these very forests. Indonesia was literally falling apart, village by village, tree by tree, and that meant extinction was nigh for myriad species, among them Van Schaik's orangutans. Environmentalists once said the apes might be extinct in a matter of decades; their increasingly frantic warnings now spoke of just years. Orangutans need virgin forest, and even senior officials acknowledged that all virgin forest in Sumatra would probably...
...voluble Smits, a former high school wrestler, ticks off a list of new findings just beginning to reveal what we will lose if wild orangutans become extinct. Often dubbed the world's best field botanists, orangutans are also talented pharmacists, treating their illnesses with forest plants. Because of their similarity to humans, the benefits are obvious. Plagued by a splitting headache while walking in the forest, Smits remembered seeing a slumped female orangutan clutching her head and groaning, only to make what seemed to be a complete recovery after eating some flowers from a nearby bush. "I immediately went...