---
title: "The Entire Food Chain Has Started Collapsing, Scientists Warn"
description: "According to 130,000 years' worth of mammalian food webs and extinction patterns, we're in the midst of a mass biodiversity crisis. Very chill."
date: "2022-09-15"
modified: "2022-09-15"
authors:
  - name: "Maggie Harrison Dupré"
    job_title: "Senior Staff Writer"
    link: "https://futurism.com/authors/mharrison"
url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/food-webs-collapsing"
categories:
  - "Food"
  - "Future Society"
tags:
  - "machine learning"
  - "mammals"
  - "mass extinction"
  - "the digest"
---

# The Entire Food Chain Has Started Collapsing, Scientists Warn

![According to 130,000 years' worth of mammalian food webs and extinction patterns, we're in the midst of a mass biodiversity crisis. Very chill.](<https://futurism.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/food-webs-collapsing.jpg>)
*\<em\>Image: Getty Images\</em\>*

## Tangled Web

According to 130,000 years' worth of data on what mammals have been eating, we're in the midst of a [mass biodiversity crisis](<https://futurism.com/the-byte/mit-scientist-mass-extinction>). Not great!

This revelation was borne of a new study, conducted by an international team of researchers and [published in the journal *Science*,](<https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abn4012>) that used machine learning to paint a detailed past — and harrowing future — of what happens to food webs when land mammals go extinct. Spoiler alert: it's pretty [grim stuff](<https://futurism.com/the-byte/mass-extinction-started-scientists>).

"While about 6 percent of land mammals have gone extinct in that time, we estimate that more than 50 percent of mammal food web links have disappeared," Evan Fricke, ecologist and lead author of the study, [said in a press release.](<https://scitechdaily.com/a-biodiversity-crisis-food-webs-worldwide-are-collapsing/>) "And the mammals most likely to decline, both in the past and now, are key for mammal food web complexity."

## All Connected

Ecosystems rely on interconnectedness — bees pollinate the flowers, predators eats prey, and so on. But these webs, though highly evolved, can be delicate. One link goes missing, and a ripple effect is felt throughout the entire system. As more species are [lost](<https://futurism.com/the-byte/scientists-mass-extinction-organisms-flee-equator>), that balance becomes [increasingly fragile](<https://futurism.com/the-byte/mass-extinction-event-climate-change>), sometimes to the point of collapse.

"When an animal disappears from an ecosystem," Fricke added, "its loss reverberates across the web of connections that link all species in that ecosystem."

## Back to the Future

The researchers utilized a machine learning system — trained "using data from modern observations of predator-prey interactions," according to the release — to reach their conclusions. It's worth noting that [machine learning isn't always perfect](<https://futurism.com/scientists-botching-research-machine-learning-they-dont-understand>), though the authors of the study at hand claim that their program has shown promising accuracy.

"This approach can tell us who eats whom today with 90 percent accuracy," ecologist Lydia Beaudrot, a senior co-author, noted in the press release. "That is better than previous approaches have been able to do, and it enabled us to model predator-prey interactions for extinct species."

In other words, this machine has offered a glimpse back in time — and as looking backwards often does, a glimpse into our potential future, should we fail to intervene in the [ongoing extinction crisis](<https://futurism.com/the-byte/mass-extinction-started-scientists>).

**More on mass extinction:** [*A Mass Extinction Has Already Started, Scientists Say*](<https://futurism.com/the-byte/mass-extinction-started-scientists>)

## Author
At Futurism, I've reported extensively on the rise of AI as a cultural and business force shaping the media industry, and more broadly how those dynamics are changing how we all consume and share information and relate to one another. I'm also fascinated by public health policy and ethics, the role of emerging tech in politics and governance — and the powerful people and forces at those intersections — climate change, and the environment. My investigation on Sports Illustrated's use of AI-generated authors with fictional biographies won a 2024 Mirror Award for "Best Story on Media Coverage of Artificial Intelligence in Journalism and the Media" from Syracuse University's SI Newhouse School, I contributed to Niemen Lab's 2025 Predictions for Journalism series, and I've discussed my work for Futurism during appearances on NPR, CNN, the BBC, the CBC, and more. I grew up in rural Pennsylvania and attended the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where I played Division I field hockey for the Minutewomen as a midfielder. Since then, I've lived in New Orleans, Louisiana and Manhattan, New York. I spend my free time running, reading, perusing archival fashion, and searching for the world’s best negroni. I also have a debonair tuxedo cat, Westley, who's named after "The Princess Bride."

### Author social links  
[Bluesky](<https://bsky.app/profile/mharrisondupre.bsky.social>)