What happens when environmental change outpaces life's ability to adapt?

[OKIsItJustMe]

https://news.mit.edu/2026/when-environmental-change-outpaces-life-ability-to-adapt-0624

A new model links Earth’s mass extinctions to mismatches between rates of environmental change and biological adaptation.
Jennifer Chu | MIT News
Publication Date:June 24, 2026

When an animal’s environment changes faster than the animal can adapt, its chances of survival can flat-line. The same is true for populations, and even entire species.

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Finding a mismatch

For their new study, the researchers looked to test the rate mismatch hypothesis at the global scale. They wanted to see whether mass extinction events in history can be explained by a mismatch between the rate of global environmental change and the rate at which life around the world can adapt.

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In the end, Rothman and Petrovskii observed that indeed, for almost every mass extinction event in the last 450 million years, there was a mismatch in the rates at which the environment changed and at which animals could adapt; mass extinctions occurred when a significant fraction of animals could not adapt fast enough to match the changing environment. Their results confirm that the rate mismatch hypothesis applies at the global scale.

What’s more, this mismatch in rates could predict the severity of extinction events, or the fraction of animal life that went extinct given the rate at which the environment changed.

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1. Rothman, D. H. & Petrovskii, S. Relating Rates of Global Change, Evolutionary Adaptation, and Extinction. Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 254201 (2026). https://doi.org/10.1103/62jn-xgqy

[2naSalit]

1. I guess...

We all die.

[Skittles]

2. I'm just glad I got to experience life before the internet, Reagan, Walmart, etc

yes indeed

[OKIsItJustMe]

3. Why, how ever did you survive?

My Grandfather said that he had seen flight progress from the Wright Brothers (when he was a teenager) to Apollo 11, Skylab and the Space Shuttle Columbia.

He witnessed the automobile go from a curiosity, to a (perceived) necessity.

He saw the smallpox vaccine, the polio vaccine, antibiotics…

Honestly, the scientific & technological advances I’ve witnessed just don’t seem to measure up.

[Skittles]

4. I hear you

as a child I used to draw the outline of my hand on the back of snail mail going to my grandparents overseas, so they could "see me growing" - they didn't have a phone and even so, transatlantic calls were too expensive

when not seeing people during lockdown was such an issue I couldn't help but think, you can call, you can text, you can SKYPE