PubMed · 9381179
Population diversity: its extent and extinction.
Abstract
Genetically distinct populations are an important component of biodiversity. This work estimates the number of populations per area of a sample of species from literature on population differentiation and the average range area of a species from a sample of distribution maps. This yields an estimate of about 220 populations per species, or 1.1 to 6.6 billion populations globally. Assuming that population extinction is a linear function of habitat loss, approximately 1800 populations per hour (16 million annually) are being destroyed in tropical forests alone.
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J B Hughes, G C Daily, P R Ehrlich. 1997-10-24. Population diversity: its extent and extinction.. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.278.5338.689
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