Stochastic computer modelling for 100 well-studied vertebrate taxa has revealed that extinction risk is strongly related to generation length but when examined over a fixed number of generations no evidence was found of a relationship between extinction risk and years. This finding has repercussions for conservation management; for example, the extinction risk for some long-lived species such as the Florida manatee, categorized as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List, may be judged to be low over 100 years but when the manatee's extinction risk was measured on a generational scale, the computer model predicted extinction for this species in 76 generations. The authors acknowledge that years are a typical human-orientated time-frame but urge that they be combined with the more biologically appropriate time frame of generations.
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