These findings have important bearings for all published simulation works which, assuming fixed or stable network structure, estimate the consequences of extinction chains triggered by disturbance.
To evaluate the potential influence of the observed changes in network structure on robustness estimates, we performed a simple extinction-chain analysis based on the networks observed in old-growth and disturbed forest.
This would result in mass extinction, food chain depletion, and starvation.
Inextricably tied to extinction, food chains are likely to become permanently unbalanced as apex predators and their prey begin to disappear.
Russians hunted sea otters almost to extinction along the Aleutian Island chain, through Alaska and into California.As settlements grew in distant places, the same old challenges of provisioning returned.
Another principle Psihoyos brings to his films – his next one, about the food chain and extinction, is already in the works – is something called gaiatsu, a Japanese term meaning external pressure.
"It's like one part of the food chain is nearing extinction and people are wondering how their hunger will be satisfied".
The drilling sets off volcanic activity that threatens to result not just in one big blow, but in a planetwide chain reaction — an "extinction level event," in the parlance of those who study such things.
In a recent mailing asking supporters for $5.00, RAN announced its "most ambitious palm oil campaign yet, aimed at convincing the top 20 snack food companies to cut orangutan extinction out of their supply chains".
The plant fossil record is consistent with the impact hypothesis, and that the impact itself killed forests at least regionally, followed by a global nuclear winter which led to widespread extinctions cascading through the terrestrial food chain.
When large animals or fish die off, the population of their natural prey may soar, but unsustainably so, leading to overgrazing or the extinction of other species in the food chain.
