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Updated: Oct 2, 2025
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Published on: March 12, 2013
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Impact of multiple small and persistent threats on extinction risk
Kaitlin Kimmel1, Michael Clark2,3,4,5, David Tilman6,7
1Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, USA.
Summary
Multiple threats can combine to significantly increase extinction risk for species. Understanding these cumulative and interactive effects is crucial for effective biodiversity conservation and preventing extinctions.
Area of Science:
- Ecology
- Conservation Biology
- Biodiversity Science
Background:
- Current research often focuses on single drivers of extinction, potentially underestimating overall biodiversity risk.
- Species frequently face multiple, persistent threats that can interact in complex ways.
Purpose of the Study:
- To develop a probabilistic model assessing extinction risk from multiple drivers and their interactions.
- To explore the cumulative and time-dependent effects of various threats on species' extinction probability.
Main Methods:
- Synthesized existing knowledge on extinction driver interactions.
- Developed a probabilistic extinction risk model incorporating multiple drivers, interactions, and temporal effects.
- Simulated extinction probabilities under various threat scenarios over time.
Main Results:
- Multiple small threats can pose a substantial cumulative extinction risk (e.g., 10 threats with 1% risk each cumulatively yield 9.7% risk).
- Interactions between drivers can escalate extinction risk.
- Persistent threats, even individually small, lead to significant long-term extinction risk (e.g., 18.2% over 200 years).
Conclusions:
- Existing approaches may mischaracterize and underestimate future biodiversity loss.
- A framework integrating multiple drivers and their interactions is essential for accurate risk assessment.
- Proactive targeting of interacting and cumulative threats can help prevent species from becoming endangered.
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