Multiple causes of high extinction risk in large mammal species

Collaborators from CPB, IoZ, Universities of Columbia, Virginia, Munich and the World Conservation Union have made new findings on the factors which put large mammals at risk from extinction.

New findings on the factors which put large mammals at risk from extinction were published in Science on the 19th August 2005. Collaborators from the CPB, Imperial College, the Institute of Zoology, Columbia University, Universities of Virginia, Munich and the World Conservation Union have made the new discovery. They make the distinction between the largely environmental factors, which affect small mammals (below 3 kilograms), and those relating to the combined effects of the environment and body mass which affect larger animals. What this means is that the disadvantages of large size are greater than generally recognised, and future loss of large mammal biodiversity could be far more rapid than expected.

An on-line version of the paper can be found on the Science web site.