16:31 | 05/20/2024
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Through a series of studies of fossils of small marine organisms, Harvard University anticipated when the next mass extinction of several species on planet Earth could occur.
The study, published in the journal Natureco-led by Anshuman Swain, a member of the Harvard Society of Fellows, focused on trying to predict the impact of global warming on life.
Scientists were able to show that some environmental events, such as global warming, can lead to mass extinctions and are preceded by subtle changes in the composition of a biological community.
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{{msg}} {{msg}}Using the Triton database, scientists corroborated how the composition of foraminiferal communities changed over millions of years. In this way, they discovered that 34 million years ago, before an extinction pulse, marine communities were concentrated away from high southern latitudes, indicating that they migrated away from the tropics.
Therefore, they concluded that if the movements of marine communities are monitored, future mass extinction events can be predicted.
Faced with this discovery, its next objective is to open research to other groups of marine life such as insects or fish. (TN)
