Climate change is causing extinctions at an increasing rate, a new study by the University of Arizona researchers shows.
Climate change is causing extinctions at an increasing rate, a new study by the University of Arizona researchers shows. They surveyed populations of the Yarrow's spiny lizard in 18 mountain ranges in southeastern Arizona and analyzed the rate of climate-related extinction over time.
"The magnitude of extinction we found over the past seven years was similar to that seen in other studies that spanned almost 70 years," said John J. Wiens, a professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at UArizona, and the senior author of the study.
The Yarrow's spiny lizard native to the southwestern U.S. and western Mexico can be spotted in oak and pine forests in 18 of Arizona's Sky Islands mountain ranges. Wiens and his group did initial surveys of the Yarrow's spiny lizard in these mountain ranges in 2014 and 2015. In 2021 and 2022, Wiens, along with Kim Holzmann, his former master's student and the lead author of the study, and Ramona Walls, a part-time researcher at UArizona's BIO5 institute, resurveyed to investigate if there had been any changes in the lizard populations since then.
Read more at: University of Arizona
A Yarrow's spiny lizard spotted at Canelo Hills, Arizona. (Photo Credit: John J. Wiens)
