Interesting choice (probably unintentional) to use a lionfish image to depict biodiversity, when it is the introduced lionfish that is decreasing biodiversity in many tropical oceans by out-eating the local species.

I suppose its more ironic that I learned about the Lionfish problem from a show called 'Shark Tank'.

There's something shaky about this analogy. Simply because , dinosaurs didn't just suddenly go extinct with a meteor strike. Other studies have proposed that they had been in decline for several million years leading up to that event. That would suggest the ray-fins had evolved enough to compete directly with marine dinosaurs and were perhaps even a hardier a kingdom of species that just needed a extraordinary event to flourish.

Hey Down-to-Earth. While the author suggests that dinosaurs are culprits of the competition he bluntly states at the end that the extinction of the ammonites and not the dinosaurs likely had the largest impact of making the habitat of ray-finned fish more accommodating to diversity

*Spoiler alert!*

Hey Patrick-Sean Morrissey ,
"The name "ammonite", from which the scientific term is derived, was inspired by the spiral shape of their fossilized shells, which somewhat resemble tightly coiled rams' horns."

......so spiral shelled mollusks out-competed fish with fins and tails ? Hmmmm....that's suspect.

(three names , are you a serial-killer ?)

There was a lot of them, so much so that they are useful for fossil indexing, they are thought to have laid their eggs in large batches on the surface (hence extinction), and they can get quite large (https://i.imgur.com/RL6QaSz....

However, positive to your earlier point, the ammonites are also thought to have been in decline due to earlier extinctions taking their toll.

Wow, betcha always wanted to here this,,, Thats Big!

holy crap...is that real...had no idea they went that large....

It's a polystyrene replica for moving about/showing off, but it is the same size as the fossil it was based on. Pretty awesome :)

They weren't mollusks they were predecessors to cephalopads (octopus and squid... Some of the most versatile marine predators alive), so yes assuming that fish and ammonites were sharing the ocean with predatory amphibians and reptiles that fish were certainly facing major competitive pressures. (and it's two names. Hyphenated words count as 1 one word. Not sure how you associate polyphonic names with serieral killers, but assuming your knowledge of stats is as robust as your understanding of evolution and ancient subclass' I'm going to assume you can claim either ignorance or you're a troll)

http://www.slate.com/articl...
And don't forget Jerry Lee Lewis . His nickname ?

As to the article, regardless, they still had a heavy cumbersome shell vs. an agile fish. Fish lay hundreds of eggs and leave'em . Cephalapods lay hundreds of eggs and stay with'em then die.

Heavy cumbersome shell?... Squids with amour man

hey guys n gals... I thought that one of the things that made a shark a shark is that it DOESN'T have scales. SO how can they compare shark scales to fish teeth???

It also occurs to me that both sides are possibly right (we will never know) But A: Man ain't so smart pooping in his own home. And if you see something in trouble it is MORALLY - (only people can have morals... to us - and maybe dolphins) correct to help or rescue someone/thing in need, hence my daughters love of rescuing small animals that bite, sting and destroy stuff. But B: The only constant in the universe seems to be change, so if things aren't changing then there is a problem. Man wants stability for his short 80 years but loves to look back and project forward far past that... You just cant know all the answers. Everything is a Theory. Mans mess is calculated in billions of tonnes. A volcano's emissions are measured in cubic miles... how many billions of tonnes in a cubic mile? (yeah I guess it depends on solid vs gas and atomic weights but still?) At any given moment there are at least 53 volcanoes erupting. I personally THINK that man is dumb for crapping in his own nest but if we disappeared tonight ... nothing would change. Species would still go extinct, the climate would heat and cool(change) and we would/will become a a blip in the time line. Sorry if I offend. (side point:- ethics, morals, thinking, and anything else you can think of/mention/conceive to prove me wrong is simply OUR way of looking at things AS A GOD LIKE thinking being. Who's to say the Grizzly or the penguin are not thinking the same way? Haven't we all watched a David Attenborough Doc or a Discovery channel show?? The way other animals react and intermingle with each other "at times" shows an almost human thought process as to how to achieve their goals and objectives. SO are they really any different to us other than we cant understand them? And what is this finding life in and around 800 degree volcanic smoke stacks (part of the 53 or more?) or living inside of radio active waste drums, petroleum products, or coldest regions of earth - - - and then there is the bacteria that "hitched a ride to the Moon" with us - apparently. Or it existed there previously , Both scenarios; "WOW" And REMEMBER, although the concept existed at least 2300 years ago, the Earth was Flat and the Center of the Universe, according to the knowledgeable people and 'that' TRUTH prevailed until around the 4th century until proof by documented sailing shown by Ferdinand Magellan and Juan Sebastián Elcano's expedition's between 1519−1522 proved the Earth to by round.

And similarly, efforts to preserve human life through medicine are so "irrational"...accidents and disease are part of life. Stop resenting and accept them.

He's pointing the out that your statement is absurd. We have the ability to prevent an illness, we cure it. Similarly, we have the ability to prevent an extinction event, we should probably do what we can to prevent it since we too will be affected.

Sitting back and doing nothing is a terrible proposition that appeals to those who want to believe the world is still something greater than ourselves. The reality is, the world is a small bubble and we are a large fish that is still getting larger. Either we preserve our bubble, or we find new ones. I don't see you suggesting we spend trillions to fund extra-solar expedetions to far away solar systems, so I assume you're either lazy as fck or just another conservatard.

the majority of earths megafauna died ouyt before the industrial revolution, we finished off the bison sure but what about the rest of the species that used to graze the earth. We got here to the party late and now control the biosphere, some eco terrorists are trying to make everyone feel responsible for something that was natural and youre one of them.

Lets toss another 100 billion into panda preservattion while millions starve cause we keep protecting farmland for endangered butterflies.

No, many of Earth's large herbivores are under threat. Handwaving about money spent on pandas suggests you don't understand the scope of the issue.

http://advances.sciencemag....

FYI, without those endangered butterflies and the rest of the pollinators that are being affected by human activity, there is no farmland.

I'm random accusing you of being foulmouthed, categorical and poisoning the well with your derogatory labels. You should be ashamed, but obviously you aren't.

Yeah or you could say that humans adopting technology to cure those diseases is another natural process, which should not be resented and just get accepted.

Now we're redefining what "natural" is.

In a vague sense, what you say makes sense. In reality, though, the scale of devastation is a problem. A few species going extinct isn't an issue for people specifically. An extinction level event, which is currently occurring, is indeed a huge issue for people. You're correct, though, that once humans die off as a species because the world they occupy is no longer habitable for them, they will become another one of those 99.9% of extinct species and the Earth will continue on.

You are not going extinct because CO2 is 400 ppm. In fact, you have more food available to you today than 100 years ago, just based on favorable growing conditions on Earth. And harvest records are proof of that.
However, you may be needlessly worrying yourself to death.

An interesting hypothesis, but one that is easy to falsify. The massive change in food production on earth was not due to climate change, but rather the "Green Revolution" (Google it); this has had its own terrible consequences in terms of nutrient pollution of out water resources.

And as for global climate change being favorable for growing conditions, maybe not (at least if you want to argue based on scientific evidence and not wishful thinking). Have a look at:

Chase J (2015) Does a Warmer World Mean a Greener World? Not Likely! PLoS Biol 13(6): e1002166. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1002166
http://journals.plos.org/pl...

"but the current trend is within our range of adaptability." ????

Shut up mate, you have zero idea what you're talking about.

Bees.

It's exactly this kind of short sighted thinking that got us into this trouble in the first place. It's not just about our own existence, it's about preserving our planet and preventing countless unique lifeforms from being snuffed out, which to me seems like the most moral thing to do. What would you have us do? Sit back and wank to our own comfort as our only home turns into another generic, barren, lifeless planet like the trillions out there.

It's a real shame that we are so capable of preventing and stopping species from endangerment and extinction, but a tragic mutation of greed and naivety keeps us from doing so. Nevertheless, to answer your question: the honey bees are currently plummeting in populations worldwide due to over fertilization with chemicals that have not been properly tested for their environmental damage and through their habitats destroyed by urbanization. This will cause massive problems far down the line due to how much our fairly fragile ecosystems rely on their pollination. I could honestly give you a few more examples but this reply to a troll or ignoramus is getting lengthy, so if you truly begin to harbor any real emotions for our planet then go read some articles. Here's a mostly true one to start you off:

http://www.independent.co.u...

You said "trend", not a specific species. And, the current rate of extinction as a "trend" does not bode well for the human species (and many others).

"Current trend is within our range of adaptability"

Well that's a nice way to say "We're pissing on the world but it's OK, because we can swim in urine and not die."

Here's some data... https://en.wikipedia.org/wi...

Well, if you don't care whether your own species survive, your reasoning might be valid. We're still before the extinction, not during or after it.