{"id":861,"date":"2004-03-23T18:58:40","date_gmt":"2004-03-23T18:58:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/agnieszkabiskup.com\/?p=861"},"modified":"2011-05-01T18:33:13","modified_gmt":"2011-05-01T23:33:13","slug":"ecology-is-the-world-on-the-brink-of-an-extinction-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/agnieszkabiskup.com\/?p=861","title":{"rendered":"ecology: is the world on the brink of an extinction crisis?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">British researchers have reported dramatic  declines in plant and animal species in the United Kingdom and suggest  it&#8217;s evidence that the earth may be experiencing &#8220;the sixth major  extinction event in its history.&#8221; (Major extinction event number five is  whatever wiped out the dinosaurs millions of years ago.) In the March  19 <em>Science,<\/em> Jeremy Thomas of the UK&#8217;s Natural Environment Research  Council Centre for Ecology and Hydrology and colleagues report analyzing  six surveys compiled by scientists and some 20,000 volunteers that  stretched back 40 years and covered almost all of the UK&#8217;s plant, bird,  and butterfly populations. The researchers found that 28 percent of  native plant species decreased in Britain over the past 40 years and  that 54 percent of bird species decreased over 20 years. Surprisingly,  since insects were thought to be among the more resilient species,  butterflies fared particularly poorly: over 20 years, 71 percent of all  butterfly species declined. If insects elsewhere are similarly  sensitive, then &#8220;the world is indeed experiencing the extinction crisis  many people have been suggesting and talking about for years,&#8221; Thomas  stated. <\/span><\/p>\n<h6><em>This news brief appeared in the Discoveries column of the <\/em>Boston Globe&#8217;s<em> Health\/Science section on 3\/23\/2004.<\/em><\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>British researchers have reported dramatic declines in plant and animal species in the United Kingdom and suggest it&#8217;s evidence that the earth may be experiencing &#8220;the sixth major extinction event in its history.&#8221; (Major extinction event number five is whatever &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/agnieszkabiskup.com\/?p=861\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-861","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-boston-globe-3","category-news-briefs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/agnieszkabiskup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/861","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/agnieszkabiskup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/agnieszkabiskup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agnieszkabiskup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agnieszkabiskup.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=861"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/agnieszkabiskup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/861\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1069,"href":"https:\/\/agnieszkabiskup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/861\/revisions\/1069"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/agnieszkabiskup.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agnieszkabiskup.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agnieszkabiskup.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}