Extinction risk from climate change
Chris D. Thomas,Alison Cameron,Rhys E. Green,Rhys E. Green,Michel Bakkenes,Linda J. Beaumont,Yvonne C. Collingham,Barend F.N. Erasmus,Marinez Ferreira de Siqueira,Alan Grainger,Lee Hannah,Lesley Hughes,Brian Huntley,Albert S. van Jaarsveld,Guy F. Midgley,Lera Miles,Lera Miles,Miguel A. Ortega-Huerta,A. Townsend Peterson,Oliver L. Phillips,Stephen E. Williams +20 more
TLDR
Estimates of extinction risks for sample regions that cover some 20% of the Earth's terrestrial surface show the importance of rapid implementation of technologies to decrease greenhouse gas emissions and strategies for carbon sequestration.Abstract:
Climate change over the past approximately 30 years has produced numerous shifts in the distributions and abundances of species and has been implicated in one species-level extinction. Using projections of species' distributions for future climate scenarios, we assess extinction risks for sample regions that cover some 20% of the Earth's terrestrial surface. Exploring three approaches in which the estimated probability of extinction shows a power-law relationship with geographical range size, we predict, on the basis of mid-range climate-warming scenarios for 2050, that 15-37% of species in our sample of regions and taxa will be 'committed to extinction'. When the average of the three methods and two dispersal scenarios is taken, minimal climate-warming scenarios produce lower projections of species committed to extinction ( approximately 18%) than mid-range ( approximately 24%) and maximum-change ( approximately 35%) scenarios. These estimates show the importance of rapid implementation of technologies to decrease greenhouse gas emissions and strategies for carbon sequestration.read more
Citations
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Upper thermal limits of Drosophila are linked to species distributions and strongly constrained phylogenetically
Vanessa Kellermann,Johannes Overgaard,Ary A. Hoffmann,Camilla Fløjgaard,Jens-Christian Svenning,Volker Loeschcke +5 more
TL;DR: It is suggested that this group of insects is unlikely to buffer global change effects through marked evolutionary changes, highlighting the importance of facilitating range shifts for maintaining biodiversity.
Journal ArticleDOI
Longevity can buffer plant and animal populations against changing climatic variability
William F. Morris,Catherine A. Pfister,Shripad Tuljapurkar,Chirrakal V. Haridas,Carol L. Boggs,Mark S. Boyce,Emilio M. Bruna,Don R. Church,Tim Coulson,Daniel F. Doak,Stacey A. Forsyth,Jean-Michel Gaillard,Carol C. Horvitz,Susan Kalisz,Bruce E. Kendall,Tiffany M. Knight,Charlotte T. Lee,Eric S. Menges +17 more
TL;DR: The results suggest that problems associated with short-lived undesirable species may be exacerbated in regions where climate variability decreases, and that taxonomic affiliation has little power to explain sensitivity to increasing variability once longevity has been taken into account.
Journal ArticleDOI
Range retractions and extinction in the face of climate warming.
TL;DR: The new evidence suggests that climate-driven extinctions and range retractions are already widespread.
Journal ArticleDOI
Correlative and mechanistic models of species distribution provide congruent forecasts under climate change.
TL;DR: It is argued that convergent lines of independent evidence provide a robust basis for predicting and managing extinctions risks under climate change.
Journal ArticleDOI
Projected climate-induced faunal change in the Western Hemisphere.
Joshua J. Lawler,Sarah L. Shafer,Denis White,Peter Kareiva,Edwin P. Maurer,Andrew R. Blaustein,Patrick J. Bartlein +6 more
TL;DR: The largest changes in fauna are predicted for the tundra, Central America, and the Andes Mountains where, assuming no dispersal constraints, specific areas are likely to experience over 90% turnover, so that faunal distributions in the future will bear little resemblance to those of today.
References
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