Final answer:
Studying endemic species, which are restricted to specific geographic areas, is essential for understanding background extinction because when they become locally extinct, it equates to a global extinction.
Step-by-step explanation:
It is much easier to study extinction in endemic species because such local extinction becomes synonymous with global extinction. Endemic species are those found naturally only in specific geographic locations and usually have restricted sizes. For instance, the koala is endemic to Australia while the raccoon is a generalist species native to most of North and Central America. Endemic species are highly valuable for the study of background extinction because their disappearance from their confined habitat means a global loss. In contrast, generalist species are distributed over a wide range of geographical locations and therefore are less prone to global extinction under the same localized threats.