Death

=== Extinction ===
{{Main|Extinction}}
[[File:ExtinctDodoBird.jpeg|thumb|upright|alt=Painting of a dodo|A [[dodo]], the bird that became a [[byword (saying)|byword]] in the English language for the extinction of a species<ref name="Diamond">{{cite book|last=Diamond |first=Jared M. |author-link=Jared Diamond |title=Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies |edition=illustrated, reprint |publisher=[[W.W. Norton]] |year=1999 |isbn=978-0-393-31755-8 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/gunsgermssteelfa00diam/page/43 43–44] |chapter=Up to the Starting Line|title-link=Guns, Germs, and Steel }}</ref>]]

Death plays a role in [[extinction]], the cessation of existence of a species or group of [[Taxon|taxa]], reducing [[biodiversity]], due to extinction being generally considered to be the death of the last individual of that species (although the [[population bottleneck|capacity to breed and recover]] may have been lost before this point). Because a species' potential [[range (biology)|range]] may be very large, determining this moment is difficult, and is usually done retrospectively.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Purvis |first1=Andy |last2=Jones |first2=Kate E. |last3=Mace |first3=Georgina M. |date=November 10, 2000 |title=Extinction |url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/1521-1878(200012)22:12%3C1123::AID-BIES10%3E3.0.CO;2-C |journal=[[BioEssays]] |volume=22 |issue=12 |pages=1123–1133 |doi=10.1002/1521-1878(200012)22:12<1123::AID-BIES10>3.0.CO;2-C |pmid=11084628 |s2cid=221463059 |via=Wiley Online Library |access-date=16 February 2023 |archive-date=16 February 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230216194700/https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/1521-1878(200012)22:12%3C1123::AID-BIES10%3E3.0.CO;2-C |url-status=live }}</ref>