Specieswatch: is the world’s wildlife entering its ‘samey’ era? | Wildlife
P.Plants and animals are disappearing at an alarming rate across the planet, with some estimates suggesting a loss of up to 150 species every day. Meanwhile, versatile species that thrive alongside humans, like pigeons, rats, and cockroaches, multiply to fill vacant gaps. Some scientists call this loss of biodiversity “the homogenocene”: the era when the world’s wildlife became more homogeneous.
It began during the last ice age, when humans hunted large mammals such as the mammoth to extinction, and has continued to the present day as land is cleared to make way for fields, farms and cities. Specialized creatures that exploit a particular niche – like the flightless Fiji band-winged rail – have been driven out by adaptable generalists, like mongooses, brought to Fiji by humans in the 19th century. More recently, the Homogenocene hit the oceans, with warmer waters devastating coral reefs, for example.
In The Conversation, paleobiologists Mark Williams and Jan Zalasiewicz from the University of Leicester describe how the most dramatic changes have taken place in recent decades. But the march forward of the homogenocene is not always inevitable. When humans actively manage land to improve wildlife – by removing dominant invasive species or using less land to grow food for example – diversity increases and nature rebounds.
