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Trophically unique species are vulnerable to cascading extinction

Owen L Petchey1, Anna Eklöf, Charlotte Borrvall

  • 1Department of Animal and Plant Sciences, Alfred Denny Building, University of Sheffield, Western Bank, Sheffield S10 2TN, United Kingdom. o.petchey@shef.ac.uk

The American Naturalist
|April 19, 2008
PubMed
Summary

Secondary extinctions disproportionately reduce trophic diversity. Conservation efforts should prioritize high-risk species, those whose extinction probability correlates with their ecological importance.

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