Through a series of studies of fossils of tiny marine organisms, Harvard University has predicted when the next mass extinction of many species on Earth might occur.
by Tennessee
The study was co-led by Anshuman Swain, a member of the Harvard University Society of Fellows, and the study focused on trying to predict the impact of global warming on life.
Scientists have been able to prove that some environmental events, such as global warming, can lead to mass extinctions and are preceded by subtle changes in the composition of the biological community.
Using the Triton database, scientists confirmed how the composition of foraminiferal communities changed over millions of years. In this way, they discovered that 34 million years ago, before the 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 were monitored, future mass extinction events could be predicted.
In the face of this discovery, her next goal is to open up research to other groups of marine life such as insects or fish.
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