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Species-Area Curve & Extinction Debt

Expand or shrink a 3D sampled habitat plot and watch species markers grow or vanish along a live power-law species-area curve, revealing the non-proportional way habitat loss causes species loss — including the lag known as extinction debt.

Ecology & Conservation Biology3DModerate60 FPS

This simulator lets you resize a sampled habitat plot in 3D and watch species markers appear or fade according to the species-area power law, S = c·A^z. Shrinking the plot doesn't remove species in proportion to the lost area — the live log-log curve on the right shows the equilibrium species count bending away from a naive 1:1 line, and surplus species linger briefly as "extinction debt" before the population settles at its new, lower carrying capacity.

⚙ Under the hood

Expand or shrink a 3D sampled habitat plot and watch species markers grow or vanish along a live power-law species-area curve, revealing how habitat loss causes non-proportional, lagging species loss known as extinction debt.

Three.jsecologybiodiversityspecies-area relationshippower lawextinction debthabitat loss

3D · Three.js / WebGL renderer · 60 FPS target · runs fully client-side, no install