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Extinction Risk in a Changing Ocean

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Saving a Million Species

Abstract

Only a handful of marine species are known to have gone globally extinct in modern times (Carlton et al., 1999; Dulvy et al., 2003). Yet it is difficult to know if this low extinction rate is due to greater resilience of marine species relative to terrestrial species, less human impact on marine species, or simply an artifact of so little of the ocean having been explored and documented. Into this already uncertain extinction picture, climate change presents additional complication.

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Acknowledgments

Thanks to Josh Lawler for conversations that guided our development of this framework for assessing climate impacts, and Mary O’Connor for comments on an early draft. Support was provided by the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis at the University of California-Santa Barbara and by the Packard Foundation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of California-Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, USA

    Benjamin S. Halpern

  2. National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, Santa Barbara, USA

    Carrie V. Kappel

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  1. Benjamin S. Halpern
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Lee Hannah

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Halpern, B.S., Kappel, C.V. (2012). Extinction Risk in a Changing Ocean. In: Hannah, L. (eds) Saving a Million Species. Island Press/Center for Resource Economics. https://doi.org/10.5822/978-1-61091-182-5_16

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