extinction not only affects the species that disappears, but alters its entire community, changing how the community as a whole, as well as individual species, respond to ecodegradation.

This is the conclusion of researchers from the us-based University of Wisconsin-Madison. Interested in understanding what happens when species go extinct, they developed mathematical models looking at changes in a community's tolerance to a particular environmental condition, such as global warming. As per their findings, as individual species disappear, two forces begin to act upon a community. One of these forces occurs when species disappear in order of their sensitivity to a particular environmental factor, with the least tolerant ones going extinct first and the best-suited ones left behind. Study author Anthony Ives avers that this ordered extinction leaves a community more resistant to that environmental pressure, protecting it from future degradation.

While this may sound like good news, there is a downside. The community's resistance to an environmental condition changes over time due to another force: alterations in foodweb interactions resulting from the extinction of