Threatened Species

• The Fundación General CSIC's Threatened Species line aims to promote the running of high impact research projects focusing on protecting or preserving threatened species. The projects funded through this line should take a multidisciplinary methodological, conceptual or strategic approach and have a strong innovative component.

From the biological point of view, the emergence and extinction of species is a natural process resulting from the basic forces of evolution: mutation, adaptation, competition, selection, etc. The concept of a threatened species is above all an artificial construction and of human origin. Moreover, many threatened species are in danger of extinction as a result of the direct action of human beings on their environment.

Species such as the Iberian lynx, the brown bear, the ptarmigan, the blue whale, etc., are well known examples of threatened species. In some cases, it is the threat due to the limited habitat available to these species, in others their indiscriminate capture, that has led them to the state of imminent extinction in which they find themselves today. These are all causes which have their origins in the activity of human beings, which we should not forget, is one more species of animal.