Front Matter (i-xviii)

Part I: Contemporary Patterns and Processes in Animals (1-4)

1 Ecological Extinction and Evolution in the Brave New Ocean--JEREMY B. C. JACKSON (5-26)

2 Are We in the Midst of the Sixth Mass Extinction? A View from the World of Amphibians--DAVID B. WAKE and VANCE T. VREDENBURG (27-44)

3 Patterns of Biodiversity and Endemism on Indo-West Pacific Coral Reefs--MARJORIE L. REAKA, PAULA J. RODGERS, and ALEXEI U. KUDLA (45-62)

4 Homage to Linnaeus: How Many Parasites? How Many Hosts?--ANDY DOBSON, KEVIN D. LAFFERTY, ARMAND M. KURIS, RYAN F. HECHINGER, and WALTER JETZ (63-82)

Part II: Contemporary Patterns and Processes in Plants and Microbes (83-84)

5 Species Invasions and Extinction: The Future of Native Biodiversity on Islands--DOV F. SAX and STEVEN D. GAINES (85-106)

6 How Many Tree Species Are There in the Amazon and How Many of Them Will Go Extinct?--STEPHEN P. HUBBELL, FANGLIANG HE, RICHARD CONDIT, LUIS BORDA-DE-ÁGUA, JAMES KELLNER, and HANS TER STEEGE (107-126)

7 Microbes on Mountainsides: Contrasting Elevational Patterns of Bacterial and Plant Diversity--JESSICA A. BRYANT, CHRISTINE LAMANNA, HÉLÈNE MORLON, ANDREW J. KERKHOFF, BRIAN J. ENQUIST, and JESSICA L. GREEN (127-148)

8 Resistance, Resilience, and Redundancy in Microbial Communities--STEVEN D. ALLISON and JENNIFER B. H. MARTINY (149-166)

Part III: Trends and Processes in the Paleontological Past (167-170)

9 Extinction as the Loss of Evolutionary History--DOUGLAS H. ERWIN (171-188)

10 Extinction and the Spatial Dynamics of Biodiversity--DAVID JABLONSKI (189-206)

11 Dynamics of Origination and Extinction in the Marine Fossil Record--JOHN ALROY (207-226)

12 Megafauna Biomass Tradeoff as a Driver of Quaternary and Future Extinctions--ANTHONY D. BARNOSKY (227-242)

Part IV: Prospects for the Future (243-246)

13 A Phylogenetic Perspective on the Distribution of Plant Diversity--MICHAEL J. DONOGHUE (247-262)

14 Phylogenetic Trees and the Future of Mammalian Biodiversity--T. JONATHAN DAVIES, SUSANNE A. FRITZ, RICHARD GRENYER, C. DAVID L. ORME, JON BIELBY, OLAF R. P. BININDA-EMONDS, MARCEL CARDILLO, KATE E. JONES, JOHN L. GITTLEMAN, GEORGINA M. MACE, and ANDY PURVIS (263-280)

15 Three Ambitious (and Rather Unorthodox) Assignments for the Field of Biodiversity Genetics--JOHN C. AVISE (281-296)

16 Engaging the Public in Biodiversity Issues--MICHAEL J. NOVACEK (297-316)

17 Further Engaging the Public on Biodiversity Issues--PETER J. BRYANT (317-328)

18 Where Does Biodiversity Go from Here? A Grim Business-as-Usual Forecast and a Hopeful Portfolio of Partial Solutions--PAUL R. EHRLICH and ROBERT M. PRINGLE (329-346)

References (347-394)

Index (395-414)