The current extinction crisis is of human making, and any favorable resolution of that biodiversity crisis—among the most dire in the 4-billion-year history of Earth—will have to be initiated by mankind. Little time remains for the public, corporations, and governments to awaken to the magnitude of what is at stake. This book aims to assist that critical educational mission, synthesizing recent scientific information and ideas about threats to biodiversity in the past, present, and projected future.

This is the second volume from the In the Light of Evolution series, based on a series of Arthur M. Sackler colloquia, and designed to promote the evolutionary sciences. Each installment explores evolutionary perspectives on a particular biological topic that is scientifically intriguing but also has special relevance to contemporary societal issues or challenges. Individually and collectively, the ILE series aims to interpret phenomena in various areas of biology through the lens of evolution, address some of the most intellectually engaging as well as pragmatically important societal issues of our times, and foster a greater appreciation of evolutionary biology as a consolidating foundation for the life sciences.



Table of Contents


Front Matter
Part I: Contemporary Patterns and Processes in Animals
1 Ecological Extinction and Evolution in the Brave New Ocean--JEREMY B. C. JACKSON
2 Are We in the Midst of the Sixth Mass Extinction? A View from the World of Amphibians--DAVID B. WAKE and VANCE T. VREDENBURG
3 Patterns of Biodiversity and Endemism on Indo-West Pacific Coral Reefs--MARJORIE L. REAKA, PAULA J. RODGERS, and ALEXEI U. KUDLA
4 Homage to Linnaeus: How Many Parasites? How Many Hosts?--ANDY DOBSON, KEVIN D. LAFFERTY, ARMAND M. KURIS, RYAN F. HECHINGER, and WALTER JETZ
Part II: Contemporary Patterns and Processes in Plants and Microbes
5 Species Invasions and Extinction: The Future of Native Biodiversity on Islands--DOV F. SAX and STEVEN D. GAINES
6 How Many Tree Species Are There in the Amazon and How Many of Them Will Go Extinct?--STEPHEN P. HUBBELL, FANGLIANG HE, RICHARD CONDIT, LUIS BORDA-DE-ÁGUA, JAMES KELLNER, and HANS TER STEEGE
7 Microbes on Mountainsides: Contrasting Elevational Patterns of Bacterial and Plant Diversity--JESSICA A. BRYANT, CHRISTINE LAMANNA, HÉLÈNE MORLON, ANDREW J. KERKHOFF, BRIAN J. ENQUIST, and JESSICA L. GREEN
8 Resistance, Resilience, and Redundancy in Microbial Communities--STEVEN D. ALLISON and JENNIFER B. H. MARTINY
Part III: Trends and Processes in the Paleontological Past
9 Extinction as the Loss of Evolutionary History--DOUGLAS H. ERWIN
10 Extinction and the Spatial Dynamics of Biodiversity--DAVID JABLONSKI
11 Dynamics of Origination and Extinction in the Marine Fossil Record--JOHN ALROY
12 Megafauna Biomass Tradeoff as a Driver of Quaternary and Future Extinctions--ANTHONY D. BARNOSKY
Part IV: Prospects for the Future
13 A Phylogenetic Perspective on the Distribution of Plant Diversity--MICHAEL J. DONOGHUE
14 Phylogenetic Trees and the Future of Mammalian Biodiversity--T. JONATHAN DAVIES, SUSANNE A. FRITZ, RICHARD GRENYER, C. DAVID L. ORME, JON BIELBY, OLAF R. P. BININDA-EMONDS, MARCEL CARDILLO, KATE E. JONES, JOHN L. GITTLEMAN, GEORGINA M. MACE, and ANDY PURVIS
15 Three Ambitious (and Rather Unorthodox) Assignments for the Field of Biodiversity Genetics--JOHN C. AVISE
16 Engaging the Public in Biodiversity Issues--MICHAEL J. NOVACEK
17 Further Engaging the Public on Biodiversity Issues--PETER J. BRYANT
18 Where Does Biodiversity Go from Here? A Grim Business-as-Usual Forecast and a Hopeful Portfolio of Partial Solutions--PAUL R. EHRLICH and ROBERT M. PRINGLE
References
Index