科學家稱：地球第六次大規模物種滅絕即將到來

The Earth could be on the brink of the sixth mass extinction in history, claim scientists。

They believe that the steep decline in populations of many animal species, from frogs and fish to tigers, is as fast as any of the last five extinctions in the past 540 million years。

The study, written by scientists from University of California, will be published in the journal Nature。

"If currently threatened species - those officially classed as critically endangered, endangered and vulnerable - actually went extinct, and that rate of extinction continued, the sixth mass extinction could arrive within as little as 3 to 22 centuries," said Professor Anthony Barnosky。

Nevertheless, Prof Barnosky said it was not too late to save these critically endangered mammals and other such species。

That would require dealing with a perfect storm of threats, including habitat fragmentation, invasive species, disease and global warming。

Biologists estimate that within the past 500 years, at least 80 mammal species have gone extinct out of a starting total of 5,570 species。科學家聲稱，地球可能要迎來第六次大規模物種滅絕。

他們認爲，近年來，許多動物物種數量的急劇減少，像青蛙、魚類和老虎等等，其銳減速度趕得上過去5億4千萬年以來五次大規模物種滅絕的任意一次。

此項研究是加利福尼亞大學的科學家撰寫，將發表在《自然》雜誌上。

安東尼•諾維斯基教授表示："如果目前面臨滅絕的物種，(包括極危物種、瀕危物種和脆弱物種)已經滅亡，而且滅絕速率還在繼續，也許在未來的300年，或者2200年，第六次大規模物種滅絕就將到來。"

儘管如此，巴諾維斯基教授還表示，現在解救這些瀕危哺乳動物和其他瀕臨滅絕物種爲時未晚。

科學家們認爲，物種滅絕速度現在因棲息地的破壞、外來物種的入侵、疾病的增多和全球變暖而加速，這些問題亟待解決。

此前，生物學家們對過去500年間的物種滅絕速度進行了深入的統計，至少有80種哺乳動物和5570種生物滅絕了。