Imagine returning to a favorite hiking trail 15 years after your first visit and discovering that many of the plants and animals that once lived there are gone.
Imagine returning to a favorite hiking trail 15 years after your first visit and discovering that many of the plants and animals that once lived there are gone. While these species may still exist elsewhere, these disappearances – known as local extinctions – are among the clearest signs that climate change is already transforming ecosystems and threatening species across the globe.
University of Arizona researchers compared local extinctions from recent climate change among more than 5,100 plant and animal species from around the world, including hundreds of species of moths and beetles, hundreds of fishes and birds, many mammals, frogs, salamanders, and lizards, and almost 3,000 species of plants.
In the study published in Nature Climate Change, the researchers found that 49% of temperate species experienced local extinction at the hottest parts of their ranges, compared with only 33% of tropical species.
Read more at: University of Arizona
A European fire salamander (Salamandra salamandra), one of the temperate species included in the study that has experienced climate-related local extinctions. (Photo Credit: John Wiens)
