title: Is humanity suicidal?
abstract: The world's fauna and flora has entered a crisis unparalleled since the end of the Mesozoic Era, with the extinction rate of species now elevated to more than a thousand times that existing before the coming of humanity. Scientists and policy makers are ill-prepared to moderate this hemorrhaging, because so little is known of the biology of the Earth's millions of species and because so little effort has been directed toward conservation thus far. With the vanished species will go great potential wealth in scientific knowledge, new products, ecosystems services, and part of the natural world in which the human species originated. The need for new research and improved management is thus urgent. If it is not met, humanity will likely survive, but in a world biologically impoverished for all time.
authors.affiliation: Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138.
authors.forename: E O
authors.initials: EO
authors.lastname: Wilson
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D005075:Biological Evolution; D017753:Ecosystem; D004777:Environment; D006801:Humans; D011158:Population Growth; D012641:Selection, Genetic