A new study used machine learning to paint a detailed past and harrowing future of what happens to food webs when land mammals go extinct. The researchers used data from modern observations of predator-prey interactions to reach their conclusions. They estimate that more than 50 percent of mammal food web links have disappeared in 130,000 years’ worth of data. The authors of the study at hand claim that their program has shown promising accuracy, though it’s worth noting that machine learning isn’t always perfect. As more species are lost, that balance becomes increasingly fragile as more species lose.Read Long Article
