Scene set for next mass extinction

摘要

Butterflies in mainland Britain are going extinct even faster than birds, according to the most comprehensive study ever of butterflies, birds and plants. It is the strongest evidence yet that we are in the middle of a mass extinction on a par with the five others that have marked the history of life on Earth. Concern has been mounting over the rate at which species of plants and animals are disappearing around the world, but the evidence has mainly come from studies of birds. "The doubters could always turn around and say that there's something peculiar about birds that makes them susceptible to the impact of man on the environment," says Jeremy Greenwood of the British Trust for Ornithology in Norfolk.