Can biodiversity persist in the face of climate change?
Predictions made over the last decade about the impacts of climate change on biodiversity may be exaggerated, according to a paper published in the journal Science.
Oxford University researchers, Professor Kathy Willis and Dr Shonil Bhagwat, argue that predicting the fate of biodiversity in the face of climate change is ‘fraught with caveats and complexities’.
They say that several larger-scale models are failing to take into account local, more detailed variations and that models often underestimate the full capacity of plants and animals to adapt to a changing climate.
The researchers’ view is that these factors ‘seriously alter the model predictions’. They suggest that ‘we should expect to see species turnover, migrations, and novel communities, but not necessarily the levels of extinction previously predicted’.
http://www.ox.ac.uk/media/news_stories/2009/091106_2.html
Paper:
Biodiversity and Climate Change
Kathy J. Willis1,2 and Shonil A. Bhagwat1
Science 6 November 2009: Vol. 326. no. 5954, pp. 806 – 807, DOI: 10.1126/science.1178838
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/short/326/5954/806
Tags: Biodiversity, Climate Predictions
