Today, extinction is a term we associate with the spiralling loss of species at human hands. Yet it is also an entirely natural phenomenon that is as creative as it is destructive. <\/p>
For as long as there has\u00a0been life on Earth, there has been extinction.It\u2019s easy to assume that extinction must be a terrible thing, and that we should do everything we can to stop a species from disappearing. <\/strong><\/p> We strive to avoid death throughout our lives, so we naturally see extinction as something to fight. But just as death will come to each of us, every species of animal, plant, fungus and microbe will eventually be consigned to the history books.\u00a0<\/p> One million species across the planet are currently threatened with extinction. It\u2019s a devastating statistic that instils an instant fight response. But as we place extinction under the microscope, we learn that it is a wholly natural biological process that actually helps to drive evolution<\/a>. Species evolve; they adapt and they go extinct.\u00a0<\/p> It\u2019s a difficult and confusing narrative during a global ecological emergency, but if we are to stand any chance in prioritising species for conservation, saving vulnerable habitats and ecosystems, and ensuring we are not responsible for one of the most devastating episodes in the history of life on Earth, then we need to understand extinction itself.<\/p> So, what drives extinction, and what makes some species disappear more easily than others? We associate the word \u2018extinction\u2019 with two things. First, the dinosaurs<\/a>, because they\u2019re probably the group we most associate as having gone through the extinction process. There\u2019s every chance a Triceratops<\/em> is galloping through your thoughts right now.\u00a0<\/p> Second, we often think that if something has gone extinct then maybe it was not quite up to the job, and possibly even deserved to disappear. This idea has been debated to explain the loss of the dinosaurs and even some of our own relatives, such as the Neanderthals.\u00a0<\/p> Both are wrong. First, the dinosaurs are not the only group to have faced extinction (and in fact have never completely died out, but that\u2019s another story). The trilobites, another prehistoric megastar group, was also lost through no fault of its own. <\/p> Comprising at least 20,000 known species that inhabited almost every type of marine habitat imaginable, the trilobites disappeared after a reign of more than 300 million years. It took the most devastating blow to life on Earth \u2013 the Permian mass extinction \u2013 to finally eradicate these armoured marine arthropods.\u00a0<\/p> Second, going extinct is a natural part of the cycle of a species. It has nothing to do with how \u2018good\u2019 or \u2018bad\u2019 it is. The dinosaurs dominated the planet for more than 160 million years before the asteroid struck, and our prehistoric Neanderthal relatives thrived for several hundred thousand before disappearing in all but their genes.\u00a0<\/p> And don\u2019t think extinction simply picks off the weak and small. Ancient apex predators<\/a>, such as the ratchet-jawed Dunkleosteus<\/em> from the Devonian period, and megalodon<\/a>, the largest predatory shark of all time, have also been claimed. Even T.rex<\/a><\/em>, the ultimate Cretaceous predator, succumbed despite being perfectly suited to its environment.\u00a0<\/p>What drives extinction?<\/h2>