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Science 24 October 1997:
Vol. 278. no. 5338, p. 549
DOI: 10.1126/science.278.5338.549i
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How many populations, demographically or genetically distinguishable groups, are there on Earth, and how rapidly are they being lost? Hughes et al. (p. 689; see the Perspective by Myers, p. 597) estimate, on the basis of published studies of population differentiation for a variety of taxa and distribution maps for different species, that there are several billion populations globally. Using the rate of tropical deforestation as a surrogate for habitat loss, and assuming that population loss parallels habitat destruction, they calculate that around 16 million individual populations are disappearing each year.




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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)