Human-driven biodiversity loss faster than mass extinction when dinosaurs were wiped out, study finds

The pace and extent of humanity’s destruction of life on our planet is ‘unprecedented’ even in comparison to previous mass extinctions, reports Harry Cockburn

Lake Volvi in Greece temporarily dries up as a consequence of excessive irrigation for agriculture paired with climate change – one of many examples of a freshwater system under human impact (C. Albrecht (JLU))

The damage humans are doing to the world is now so great that in some ecosystems the biodiversity loss exceeds the rate of extinction at the time the dinosaurs died out, and the destruction could require millions of years to undo, scientists have said.

A new study shows that the current rate of biodiversity decline in freshwater ecosystems, which are among the world’s most threatened, is up to three times higher than the period during which the dinosaurs went extinct, and over the next century a third of all living freshwater species may have vanished.

This high level of biodiversity collapse is “unprecedented” even within previous mass extinctions, the team from Justus Liebig University in Germany said.