Identifying Extinction Threats: Global Analyses of the Distribution of Biodiversity and the Expansion of the Human Enterprise

Relatively pristine habitats around the world are being lost at unprecedented rates (Melillo et al. 1985, Skole and Tucker 1993) as an expanding human population converts them to agriculture, forestry, and urban centers (Hall 1978, Vitousek et al. 1986). As these habitats are altered, untold numbers of species are disappearing before they have been recognized, much less studied (Wilson 1989), and the functioning of entire ecosystems is threatened. This loss of biodiversity, at the very time when the value of biotic resources is becoming widely recognized (Malone 1992), has made it strikingly clear that current strategies for conservation are failing dismally (Ehrlich 1992, Ehrlich and Wilson 1991).

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