Paleonet: Recently extinct marine bivalves and arthropods?

Fri Sep 2 17:30:01 UTC 2022

Best paper on the subject of comparing extinction rates is:
Barnosky, A. D., Matzke, N., Tomiya, S., Wogan, G. O. U., Swartz, B., Quental, T. B., Marshall, C., Mcguire, J. L., Lindsey, E. L., Maguire, K. C., Mersey, B., and Ferrer, E. A., 2011, Has the Earth's sixth mass extinction already arrived?: Nature, v. 471, no. 7336, p. 51-57.
See also:
Barnosky, A. D., 2014, Paleontological evidence for defining the Anthopocene., in Waters, C. N., Zalasiewicz, J. A., Williams, M., Ellis, M. A., and A.M, S., eds., A Stratigraphical Basis For The Anthropocene. Geological Society Special Publication 395: London, The Geological Society.
And my own takes on the subject:
Plotnick, R. E., and Koy, K. A., 2020, The Anthropocene fossil record of terrestrial mammals: Anthropocene, v. 29, p. 100233.
Plotnick, R. E., Smith, F. A., and Lyons, S. K., 2016, The fossil record of the sixth extinction: Ecology Letters, v. 19, no. 5, p. 546-553.

  *   Roy

Roy E. Plotnick
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From: Paleonet <paleonet-bounces+plotnick=uic.edu at paleonet.org> On Behalf Of Alexander Glass
Sent: Friday, September 2, 2022 10:19 AM
To: PaleoNet <paleonet at paleonet.org>
Subject: Re: Paleonet: Recently extinct marine bivalves and arthropods?

Thanks for raising this important issue.  This reminds me of often repeated claims that "today's extinction is happening at unprecedented rates", or "a species goes extinct every 3 seconds", etc.  I teach about extinction in both my historical and my modern day climate change class, and have found it EXTREMELY difficult to actually find REAL studies and primary literature that support these assertions.  No, I am not a "extinction denier" (LOL) BUT if anyone can recommend readings that explain HOW we determine modern-day extinction rates (across the entire flora and faunal level) and how we compare that to the fossil record, I would appreciated it.  As Noel points out the IUCN Red List is frighteningly incomplete in its assessment of even known biodiversity.  Makes it difficult for me to accept the kind of "numerical claims" that pop up in the popular literature....Honestly, I have yet to find a peer-reviewed paper that includes a statistically robust analysis of planet-wide extinction rates today, and my standards are probably really low.

Alex

From: Paleonet <paleonet-bounces+alex.glass=duke.edu at paleonet.org<mailto:paleonet-bounces+alex.glass=duke.edu at paleonet.org>> On Behalf Of Noel Heim
Sent: Friday, September 2, 2022 10:34 AM
To: paleonet at paleonet.org<mailto:paleonet at paleonet.org>
Subject: Re: Paleonet: Recently extinct marine bivalves and arthropods?

Hi Tom,

I can't think of an extinct marine bivalve or arthropod either. A quick search of the IUCN Red List and WoRMS for bivalves supports your hypothesis that we have simply not gathered evidence for extinction threat. The Red List includes 83 marine bivalve species that have been evaluated. WoRMS lists a 8,430 extant marine bivalve species in total. I'm sure limiting to genera would produce a similar percentage of evaluated taxa. Though both these databases have their critics, this certainly suggests we just have not studied extinction and extinction vulnerability in these groups to the same extent as we have for mammals, birds, etc.

Best,
Noel

****
Noel Heim
Tufts University
Dept. Earth & Climate Sciences
On 9/2/22 10:16 AM, Thomas Hegna wrote:
All,
   I'm having a debate with someone about appropriate indicators for our recent biodiversity crisis (extinction at taxonomically high levels vs. taxonomically low levels). They made the claim that no marine bivalve or marine arthropod genus has gone extinct in the last 500 years. I think they are unintentionally cherry-picking (but I understand why--they want to ultimately compare this to the paleobiology database, which was originally focused on marine, shelly organisms). The "Save the Crabs, Then Eat 'Em" campaign is much less well known than the "Save the Whales" campaign, sadly. But, I do not know if it is true. Can any of you think of a recently extinct marine arthropod or bivalve genus? I suspect this is a case of absence of evidence does not necessarily mean evidence of absence.
Best,
Tom

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