We're in the midst of a mass biodiversity crisis according to 130,000 years of data on what mammals have been eating. It wasn't great.
A new study, conducted by an international team of researchers and published in the journal Science, used machine learning to paint a detailed history of what happens to food webs when land mammals go extinct. It's pretty bleak.
About six percent of land mammals have gone extinct in that time, but we estimate that more than 50 percent of mammal food web links have disappeared. The most likely to decline are the mammals.
The bees pollinate the flowers and the predator eats the prey. These webs can be very delicate. The entire system is affected by one link going missing. Balance becomes more fragile as more species are lost
An animal's disappearance from an environment has a cascading effect on the web of connections that link all species in that environment.
The researchers used a machine learning system to reach their conclusions. The authors of the study claim that their program has shown promising accuracy, despite the fact that machine learning is not always perfect.
A senior co-author noted in the press release that this approach can tell us who eats who. It allowed us to model predator-prey interactions for extinct species.
If we fail to intervene in the ongoing extinction crisis, this machine will offer a glimpse into our potential future.
Scientists say a mass extinction has already started.
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