Reacción a "More than 1,300 bird species will become extinct in the next 200 years"

This work represents the best estimate to date of the impact that humans have had and will have on the extinction rate of a major taxonomic group such as birds, and what these extinctions mean in terms of loss of ecosystem functionality and phylogenetic diversity. The study identifies oceanic islands as places where bird extinctions are both more likely and more severe in terms of ecosystem functioning because unique adaptations to these unique and fragile environments have evolved.

This kind of ambitious analysis can only be done for birds, as it uses two essential types of data that are globally available only for this group: molecular phylogenies and morphological data for the world's 10,000+ species. Without the availability of all bird species in the biological collections of natural history museums, it would not be possible to perform this kind of much-needed analysis, and future predictions indicate that the loss of bird species caused by human impacts could seriously affect the functioning of ecosystems.