Draft:Outline of extinction

Termination of a taxon by the death of its last member

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to extinction:

Extinction is the termination of an organism by the death of its last member. A taxon may become functionally extinct before the death of its last member if it loses the capacity to reproduce and recover. As a species' potential range may be very large, determining this moment is difficult, and is usually done retrospectively. This difficulty leads to phenomena such as Lazarus taxa, where a species presumed extinct abruptly "reappears" (typically in the fossil record) after a period of apparent absence.

Over five billion species are estimated to have died out. It is estimated that there are currently around 8.7 million species of eukaryotes globally, possibly many times more if microorganisms are included. Notable extinct animal species include non-avian dinosaurs, saber-toothed cats, and mammoths. Through evolution, species arise through the process of speciation. Species become extinct when they are no longer able to survive in changing conditions or against superior competition. The relationship between animals and their ecological niches has been firmly established. A typical species becomes extinct within 10 million years of its first appearance, although some species, called living fossils, survive with little to no morphological change for hundreds of millions of years.

What type of thing is extinction?

Extinction can be described as all of the following:

• A biological phenomenon –
  • A type of death –

Types of extinction

• Coextinction
• Conservation-induced extinction
• Extinction debt
• Ecological extinction
• Evolutionary suicide
• Functional extinction
• Local extinction

• Mass extinction
• Pseudoextinction
• Extinct in the wild

Potential causes of extinction

• Artificial intelligence
• Asteroid impact
• Biological warfare
• Climate change
  • Extinction risk from climate change
• Deforestation
• Disease
• Ecological collapse
• Extinction event
• Genetic engineering
• Genetic erosion
• Habitat destruction
• Human overpopulation
• Interspecific competition
• Invasive species
• Nanotechnology
• Nuclear warfare
• Ocean acidification
• Overfishing
• Overhunting
• Pollution
• Resource depletion
• Superflare
• Volcanic eruption

History of extinction

History of extinction

Extinct species

• Lists of extinct species

Extinct animals

Arachnids

• List of extinct arachnids

Birds

• List of extinct bird species since 1500
• List of bird extinctions by year
• List of moa species

Fishes

• List of recently extinct fishes

Mammals

• List of recently extinct mammals
• List of extinct dog breeds
• List of extinct cetaceans

Insects

• List of extinct butterflies
• List of recently extinct insects

Amphibians

• List of recently extinct amphibians

Extinct plants

List of recently extinct plants

Extinct species, by continent

• List of African animals extinct in the Holocene
  • List of Madagascar and Indian Ocean Island animals extinct in the Holocene
• List of Asian animals extinct in the Holocene
• List of European species extinct in the Holocene
• List of North American animals extinct in the Holocene
  • List of Hawaiian animals extinct in the Holocene
• List of Oceanian species extinct in the Holocene
  • List of Australia-New Guinea species extinct in the Holocene
  • List of New Zealand species extinct in the Holocene
• List of South American animals extinct in the Holocene
• Islands
  • List of Madagascar and Indian Ocean Island animals extinct in the Holocene
  • List of Antillian and Bermudan animals extinct in the Holocene

Reversing extinction

• De-extinction –
• Human-guided migration –
• Species reintroduction –
  • examples –
    • Eurasian beaver reintroduction
    • Lynx reintroduction in Great Britain
• Rewilding –
• Species translocation – human action of moving an organism from one area and releasing it in another.

Extinction in media

Art

• Extinct species in art

Film

Extinction-related organizations

Extinction-related publications

Persons influential in extinction

See also

References

External links

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