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Abstract

Local extinction of species can occur with a substantial delay following habitat loss or degradation. Accumulating evidence suggests that such extinction debts pose a significant but often unrecognized challenge for biodiversity conservation across a wide range of taxa and ecosystems. Species with long generation times and populations near their extinction threshold are most likely to have an extinction debt. However, as long as a species that is predicted to become extinct still persists, there is time for conservation measures such as habitat restoration and landscape management. Standardized long-term monitoring, more high-quality empirical studies on different taxa and ecosystems and further development of analytical methods will help to better quantify extinction debt and protect biodiversity.

Published in

Trends in ecology & evolution
2009, volume: 24, number: 10, pages: 564-571

SLU Authors

Global goals (SDG)

SDG13 Climate action
SDG15 Life on land

UKÄ Subject classification

Ecology
Genetics and Genomics
Environmental Sciences

Publication identifier

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2009.04.011

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/26265