PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - Dirzo, Rodolfo AU - Young, Hillary S. AU - Galetti, Mauro AU - Ceballos, Gerardo AU - Isaac, Nick J. B. AU - Collen, Ben TI - Defaunation in the Anthropocene AID - 10.1126/science.1251817 DP - 2014 Jul 25 TA - Science PG - 401--406 VI - 345 IP - 6195 4099 - http://science.sciencemag.org/content/345/6195/401.short 4100 - http://science.sciencemag.org/content/345/6195/401.full SO - Science2014 Jul 25; 345 AB - We live amid a global wave of anthropogenically driven biodiversity loss: species and population extirpations and, critically, declines in local species abundance. Particularly, human impacts on animal biodiversity are an under-recognized form of global environmental change. Among terrestrial vertebrates, 322 species have become extinct since 1500, and populations of the remaining species show 25% average decline in abundance. Invertebrate patterns are equally dire: 67% of monitored populations show 45% mean abundance decline. Such animal declines will cascade onto ecosystem functioning and human well-being. Much remains unknown about this “Anthropocene defaunation”; these knowledge gaps hinder our capacity to predict and limit defaunation impacts. Clearly, however, defaunation is both a pervasive component of the planet’s sixth mass extinction and also a major driver of global ecological change.