Course: Extinctions: Past and Present

I asked Professor Lindsey Gillson, an ecologist studying the long term conservation of ecosystems, about her concerns regarding the Anthropocene. The extinctions of modern biota are being caused by factors …

I interviewed postdoctoral researcher, Dr Denham Parker, who studies fisheries science about human impacts on aquatic biodiversity. Dr Parker explained how modern climate change was causing two direct problems for …

I spoke to Professor Timm Hoffman, a plant biologist, on the slopes of Table Mountain, where he showed us a visual example of landscape change due to human activity. Timm …

I interviewed Professor Muthama Muasya, a plant scientist, about threats facing plants from humans’ impact on their habitats. It is not just the loss of hectares of natural vegetation that …

Ornithologist, Professor Peter Ryan, describes the threats to birds from human activity as being different in terrestrial and marine environments. Climate change impacts on all species, but land-based birds are …

Coming to the end of the course, we have shifted our gaze from the long distant past, towards the present and future. From my guests in this last week, we …

Having looked back into deep time at the five mass extinction events, what can we say about the threats to biodiversity today? We have seen how extinction has been a …

Professor William Bond has a lifetime of research under his belt and I asked him to share some of his knowledge about grassland ecosystems – how they came to be …

With the fifth and last mass extinction at the end of the Cretaceous, 75% of all species were wiped out including non-avian dinosaurs, pterosaurs, and many early birds. In the …

The End Cretaceous extinction event occurred about 65 million years ago. This is the extinction event that has commanded the most attention and has received the most research interest. This …

I interview Dr Emil Krupandan who is a dinosaur palaeontologist about some of the research he has done during his PhD to uncover new information about the early evolution and …

We saw this week the End of the Triassic event that may have resulted in increased atmospheric CO2 and global warming i.e. the same factors that scientists today are drawing …

Finally, it is time to be able to talk about humans entering the life of earth story! I asked Professor Becky Ackermann, a biological anthropologist to tell me about when …

In this interview with Pippa Haarhoff, manager of the West Coast Fossil Park, you can see one of the Africa’s richest fossil sites of its age. The fossils found here …

After the End Triassic extinction, dinosaurs become the dominant terrestrial animals. They fill the gaps left in the ecospaces for large herbivores, and later also become the dominant predatory animals. …