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background extinction

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background extinction  (bkground)
The ongoing extinction of individual species due to environmental or ecological factors such as climate change, disease, loss of habitat, or competitive disadvantage in relation to other species. Background extinction occurs at a fairly steady rate over geological time and is the result of normal evolutionary processes, with only a limited number of species in an ecosystem being affected at any one time. Compare mass extinction.


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Both background extinctions, which represent most extinctions in the history of life, and mass extinctions tend to be clumped into particular evolutionary lineages," Jablonski said.
DEEP BACKGROUND To determine the background extinction rate, scientists look to the fossil record and to genetic material, or DNA, which accumulates small changes in its sequence as it is copied and passed down from generation to generation.
According to David Jablonski at the University of Chicago, adaptive traits that enhance survival and diversification of species during times of background extinction tend to have little in common with those traits that increase the chances of survival during mass extinctions.
 
 
 
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