A dream came true: Half grown Siberian tiger in the snow

Jorginho wrote:

A large part of the feared mass extinction hinges on two factors:- Rapid global warming, whichis undisputed and scientific sound proven. Climatologists in their papers are clear about what they do and don't know

Agreed.

- Habitatloss (which is more difficult to prove even if it seems so selfevident)

There is no doubt about habitat loss. But let us not forget that at least in Middle Europe the diversity is higher due to the patchwork of agricultural, pastural, forest etc. land. That is the reason why there are initiatives to preserve all these aspects. Problem here was rather the creation of large monocultural land.

- Invasive species (apart from islands and islandlike habitats there is zero proof for that).

I think that one problem here is that there research is very manpower-hungry, and thus not well-financed in our time of ratings and reducing results to simple (black and white) numbers. I published three short records of non-indigenous species in the Mediterranean, and got a short glimpse about the huge problem of quantifying and verifying the data.

BUT, I have to agree that there is a constant change anyway, so we might just see this a s a global experiment playing before our eyes. With our influence on some of the factors we however seem to accelerate some parts of the issue. I think the subliminal fear is that in accelerating species extinction and climatic shifts we ourselves are possibly in danger (at least part of us) in being wiped out. As you have always to point out: we do not have the capacity to destroy the planet (yet), and the biosphere readily bounced back after all of the past (and the big five) waves of extinction.

You might also say that there are areas like the eastern Mediterranean that since the Messinian salinity crisis is still below its “normal" diversity, with some of the species introduced vie the Suez Canal and/or ballast water/aquarium "escapes" now settling in open or still not fully used niches. But there is no consensus how much any of these species influences others or "destroys" / occupies habitats (some algae come to mind).

Regards