Modern Extinctions

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05/14/2010

May. 14, 2010

Modern Extinctions

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Over the course of the Earth's history, there have been at least five major extinction events -- the End Ordovician, Late Devonian, End Permian, End Triassic, and End Cretaceous. Some ecologists, citing the loss of biodiversity in certain areas and the species at risk, say that a new major extinction event could be on the horizon. Writing this week in the journal Science, researchers say that warming temperatures could cause one-fifth of the world's lizard species to become extinct by the year 2080.

In this hour, we'll talk about modern extinctions and what causes them. How much is human activity to blame? Plus, we'll check in with researchers studying a fungal infection that has devastated frog populations in some parts of the world.

Produced by Christopher Intagliata, Associate Senior Producer

Guests

Vance Vredenburg
Assistant Professor, Department of Biology

San Francisco State University

Research Associate, Museum of Vertebrate Zoology

Research Associate, California Academy of Sciences

San Francisco, California
Barry Sinervo
Professor, Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology

University of California, Santa Cruz

Santa Cruz, California
Tony Barnosky
Author, "Heatstroke: Nature in an Age of Global Warming" (Shearwater, 2009)

Professor, Department of Integrative Biology

University of California, Berkeley

University of California Museum of Paleontology

Berkeley, California
George Amato
Director and Affiliated Professor

Sackler Institute of Comparative Genomics

American Museum of Natural History

New York, New York

May. 14, 2010