Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Letter
  • Published:

Catastrophic extinctions follow deforestation in Singapore

Nature volume 424, pages 420–423 (2003)Cite this article

Abstract

The looming mass extinction of biodiversity in the humid tropics is a major concern for the future1, yet most reports of extinctions in these regions are anecdotal or conjectural, with a scarcity of robust, broad-based empirical data2,3,4. Here we report on local extinctions among a wide range of terrestrial and freshwater taxa from Singapore (540 km2) in relation to habitat loss exceeding 95% over 183 years5,6. Substantial rates of documented and inferred extinctions were found, especially for forest specialists, with the greatest proportion of extinct taxa (34–87%) in butterflies, fish, birds and mammals. Observed extinctions were generally fewer, but inferred losses often higher, in vascular plants, phasmids, decapods, amphibians and reptiles (5–80%). Forest reserves comprising only 0.25% of Singapore's area now harbour over 50% of the residual native biodiversity. Extrapolations of the observed and inferred local extinction data, using a calibrated species–area model7,8,9, imply that the current unprecedented rate of habitat destruction in Southeast Asia10 will result in the loss of 13–42% of regional populations over the next century, at least half of which will represent global species extinctions.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: Observed and projected biodiversity loss in Singapore, 1819–2002.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Novacek, M. J. & Cleland, E. E. The current biodiversity extinction event: scenarios for mitigation and recovery. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 98, 5466–5470 (2001)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  2. Heywood, V. H., Mace, G. M., May, R. M. & Stuart, S. N. Uncertainties in extinction rates. Nature 368, 105 (1994)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  3. Pitman, N. C. A. & Jørgensen, P. M. Estimating the size of the world's threatened flora. Science 298, 989 (2002)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  4. Heywood, V. H. & Stuart, S. N. in Tropical Deforestation and Species Extinction (eds Whitmore, T. C. & Sauer, J. A.) 91–117 (Chapman and Hall, London, 1992)

    Google Scholar 

  5. Corlett, R. T. The ecological transformation of Singapore, 1819–1990. J. Biogeogr. 19, 411–420 (1992)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Turner, I. M. et al. A study of plant species extinction in Singapore: lessons for the conservation of tropical biodiversity. Conserv. Biol. 8, 705–712 (1994)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Brooks, T. M., Pimm, S. L. & Collar, N. J. Deforestation predicts the number of threatened birds in insular Southeast Asia. Conserv. Biol. 11, 382–394 (1997)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Brooks, T. M., Pimm, S. L. & Oyugi, J. O. Time lag between deforestation and bird extinction in tropical forest fragments. Conserv. Biol. 13, 1140–1150 (1999)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. May, R. M. & Stumpf, M. P. H. Species-area relations in tropical forests. Science 290, 2084–2086 (2000)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  10. Achard, F. et al. Determination of deforestation rates of the world's humid tropical forests. Science 297, 999–1002 (2002)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  11. Myers, N., Mittermeier, C. G., Mittermeier, G. A., da Fonseca, G. A. B. & Kent, J. Biodiversity hotspots for conservation priorities. Nature 403, 853–858 (2000)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  12. Laurance, W. F. Reflections on the tropical deforestation crisis. Biol. Conserv. 91, 109–117 (1999)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Corlett, R. T. in The Ecological Consequences of Environmental Heterogeneity (eds Hutchings, M. J., John, E. A. & Stewart, A.) 333–355 (Blackwell Science, Oxford, 2000)

    Google Scholar 

  14. Milner-Gulland, E. J. & Akçakaya, H. R. Sustainability indices for exploited populations. Trends Ecol. Evol. 16, 686–692 (2001)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Russell, G. J., Brooks, T. M., McKinney, M. M. & Anderson, C. G. Present and future taxonomic selectivity in bird and mammal extinctions. Conserv. Biol. 12, 1365–1376 (1998)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. Castelletta, M., Sodhi, N. S. & Subaraj, R. Heavy extinctions of forest avifauna in Singapore: lessons for biodiversity conservation in Southeast Asia. Conserv. Biol. 14, 1870–1880 (2000)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Sodhi, N. S. & Liow, L. H. Improving conservation biology research in Southeast Asia. Conserv. Biol. 14, 1211–1212 (2000)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Droege, S., Cyr, A. & Larivee, J. Checklists: an under-used tool for the inventory and monitoring of plants and animals. Conserv. Biol. 12, 1134–1138 (1998)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  19. Williamson, M. Natural extinction on islands. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. B 325, 457–468 (1989)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  20. Ceballos, G. & Ehrlich, P. R. Mammal population losses and the extinction crisis. Science 296, 904–907 (2002)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  21. Diamond, J. M. Extant unless proven extinct? Or, extinct unless proven extant? Conserv. Biol. 1, 77–79 (1987)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  22. Ng, P. K. L. & Wee, Y. C. (eds) The Singapore Red Data Book (The Nature Society, Singapore, 1994)

  23. Bierregaard, R. O. J., Lovejoy, T. E., Kapos, V., dos Santos, A. A. & Hutchings, R. W. The biological dynamics of tropical rainforest fragments. BioScience 42, 859–866 (1992)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  24. Peters, R. H. The Ecological Implications of Body Size (Cambridge Univ. Press, New York, 1983)

    Book  Google Scholar 

  25. Turner, I. M. & Corlett, R. T. The conservation value of small, isolated fragments of lowland tropical rain forest. Trends Ecol. Evol. 11, 330–333 (1996)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  26. Tilman, D., May, R. M., Lehman, C. L. & Nowak, M. A. Habitat destruction and the extinction debt. Nature 371, 65–66 (1994)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  27. Lim, K. S. & Gardner, D. Birds: An Illustrated Field Guide to the Birds of Singapore (Sun Tree Publishing Limited, Singapore, 1997)

    Google Scholar 

  28. Ng, P. K. L. & Lim, K. K. P. The conservation status of the Nee Soon freshwater swamp forest of Singapore. Aquat. Conserv. 2, 255–266 (1992)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  29. Araujo, M. B. & Williams, P. H. Selecting areas for species persistence using occurrence data. Biol. Conserv. 96, 331–345 (2000)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  30. Ridley, H. N. The flora of Singapore. J. Straits' Branch R. Asiatic Soc. 33, 27–196 (1900)

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

We thank I. Turner, K. Lim and T. Leong for providing timely answers to our taxonomic queries, and D. Bowman, R. Corlett, P. Whitehead, K. Winker and N. Yamamura for comments on the manuscript. This research was funded by grants from the Raffles Museum of Biodiversity Research, National University of Singapore, Australian Research Council and the Center for Ecological Research Visiting Research Scholar Programme.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Ecological Research, Kyoto University, Otsu, 520-2113, Japan

    Barry W. Brook

  2. Key Centre for Tropical Wildlife Management, Northern Territory University, 0909, Northern Territory, Darwin, Australia

    Barry W. Brook

  3. Department of Biological Sciences, National University of Singapore, 14 Science Drive 4, Singapore, 117543, Republic of Singapore

    Navjot S. Sodhi & Peter K. L. Ng

Authors
  1. Barry W. Brook
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Navjot S. Sodhi
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Peter K. L. Ng
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Barry W. Brook or Navjot S. Sodhi.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no competing financial interests.

Supplementary information

41586_2003_BFnature01795_MOESM1_ESM.doc

Supplementary Information: List of all primary and secondary literature used to evaluate species extinctions in Singapore and the comparative biodiversity of Peninsular Malaysia (excluding those publications cited in the main paper). (DOC 26 kb)

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Brook, B., Sodhi, N. & Ng, P. Catastrophic extinctions follow deforestation in Singapore. Nature 424, 420–423 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature01795

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nature01795

This article is cited by

Comments

By submitting a comment you agree to abide by our Terms and Community Guidelines. If you find something abusive or that does not comply with our terms or guidelines please flag it as inappropriate.

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing