Climate change impact on animal species

Climate change is one of tremendous dangers, which might occur in the next 100 years. To date it is of scientific concern to forecast what transformations will happen to the world, including natural environment, technology, social livelihood, etc. Animals are probably the only living creatures, which have already passed the age of major natural alterations dozens of millions years ago, at least some of them did. Do you remember dinosaurs, much depicted by modern film industry? That’s right, this is animal species, which could not overcome severe climate change. Age of tropic climate has been replaced by glacial eras for several times, but what consequences might bring next climate change period for animal habitat?

1.       Temperature shift is one of the most urgent in this context. In particular, it influences on processes in a body of any being, and the nature taken as a whole. Plants can experience severe changes, which leads to meal disorder for animals. Therefore, they may have less food to eat and, in the end, reduction of species sizes or even population quantity is unavoidable. In addition, scholars from Singapore National University state that hot temperature and unstable precipitations will definitely reduce body sizes of animals. In particular, their research gives some examples of possible body mass decline: fish – on 6-22% per 1°, bugs – 1-3%, salamanders   -14%. For the last 50 years certain species have already experienced major body decrease (common frogs (Bufobufo), red deer (Cervuselaphus), and marine iguanas (Amblyrhynchuscristatus).

2.       The emergence of new species and decrease of common ones is also a point to consider. Scientists from Washington University claim that some animals have not much time to avoid climate change influence. The Earth temperature rises due to greenhouse gases, the climate in Western Hemisphere will change dramatically and mammals in the North and South America will have to move into new habitats, which are more suitable for their existence. According to scientific estimates, 9% of American species, as well as 40% of animals from other regions, will not manage to escape climate change due to low speed.

3.       On the contrary, tropical species might also clash with despite the fact that hot climate is essential for them.The key thing is that there are some animal kinds, which possess extra-sensitivity to even the slightest temperature shifts. 

4.       Among already confirmed species, which are likely to survive, there are many carnivore species, armadillos, deer, coyotes and some moose. Many of these animals can move at a fairly long distances to reach the places where they can normally survive quickly.

5.       Massive animal migration to colder planet areas is noticed even today. There are 2 thousand records about changes of animal areal borders. Equatorial species move with a speed of 1,5 km / year to Northern and Southern poles, while birds are flying 12 meters higher. So, the direct influence of climate change on animals and their habitat is a no-doubt-issue, which testifies the probability of species’ survival. 

By Maria Kruk, an author for Species.com

Climate change has adverse effect on bird species

Climate change will likely have devastating effect on many animal species with tropical birds being one of the worst hit species, especially those birds in tropics that have their habitats in mountainous regions.

This is one of the conclusions of the latest study published in the journal Biological Conservation by Çağan Şekercioğlu, scientist at the University of Utah.

He believes that the number of extinct bird species due to climate change will be somewhere between 100 to 2,500 depending on the total increase in temperatures and the total amount of habitat loss. Without the adequate conservation efforts total number of bird species that will forever perish from the face of this planet due to climate change is likely to be 600 to 900 by the end of this century.

Climate change is not only expected to bring ever-increasing temperatures but also more frequent extreme weather events such as droughts, heat waves, wildfires, cold spells, hurricanes and storms all of which can have devastating impact on many bird species across the globe.

Climate change can even spread malaria-carrying mosquitoes to higher elevations in places like Hawaii, where the malaria parasite can endanger previously unexposed bird species.

Şekercioğlu also added that "not all effects of climate change are negative for birds, and changes in temperature and precipitation regimes will benefit some species. Nevertheless, climate change will not benefit many species."

One thing is sure though, in order to protect not only bird but many other animal species the world will have to do lot more research and provide more conservation efforts. Failure to do so will likely lead to yet another mass extinction event on our planet that will put the future of our generations in great jeopardy.

Climate change is already shrinking animals and plants?

Climate change has already brought many animal and plant species at the very brink of extinction while other plants and animals are shrinking in size because of warmer temperatures.

Jennifer Sheridan and David Bickford at the National University of Singapore have studied climate-change episodes in the distant past as well as experiments and observations in recent history. Their conclusion was that climate change has already begun to shrink dozens of animal and plants species with many more likely to follow.

Fossil records from the past clearly show that past periods of rising temperatures had led both marine and land organisms to gradually shrink in size. During a warming event 55 million years ago many species such as beetles, bees, spiders, wasps and ants shrank by 50 to 75 percent in size over a period of several thousand years.

The most worrying fact is that the current warming trend is lot faster than the one of 55 million years ago. In the worst possible scenario if food crops and animals continue to shrink this will in years to come lead to severe food shortages and more hunger in the world.

The scientists have calculated that the each degree of warming reduces by 0.5 to 4 percent the body size of marine invertebrates and 6 to 22 percent of fish. Not only that, frequent droughts also lead to smaller offspring.

The additional problem in the whole climate change story is the fact that our planet is warming really fast which doesn't leave much room for plants and animals to adapt quickly enough.

And the carbon emissions still continue to grow…

How is climate change affecting corals?

Climate change is already having negative impact on many species, and in years to come things will likely become even worse. Among the species most sensitive to climate change are definitely corals, and if the world fails to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions corals could in years to come totally disappear from our seas and oceans.

Professor Ove Hoegh Guldberg from the Global Change Institute at the University of Queensland has already warned world leaders about this issue by saying that climate change is making coral bleaching far more frequent than ever before.

He also pointed out that the Great Barrier Reef, the world's largest reef system, with its variety of colorful corals, could be gone within four decades unless world reduces greenhouse gas emissions to acceptable levels.

The excessive carbon emissions are the main reason behind the increasing ocean acidification that is currently one of the biggest threats to survival of corals. If world continues with current levels of carbon emissions corals will soon become unable to cope with it, and will forever perish from the face of the earth.

By continuing current levels of greenhouse gas emissions we could very soon reach the point of no return where we won't be able to limit further temperature increases which will lead to not only extinction of corals but many other species too, both in land as well as in seas and oceans.

Corals play extremely important role in marine food chain, and their extinction would no doubt create huge marine biodiversity loss. It's definitely the time for action but are world leaders finally ready to go beyond the talk and actually do something to protect our planet from climate change?

How does global warming affect animals?

There is no doubt whatsoever that global warming is affecting the whole planet. Climate change is forcing every living creature on our planet to adapt to climate change. As the global warming impact becomes stronger and stronger, animals find it more and more difficult to adapt. And the worst thing is that this is only a start of something that will become much worse in years to come. Changed weather conditions and more frequent extreme weather events will cause many animals to go extinct.

Many people mostly connect global warming with ice melting and polar bears. Sadly polar bears are not the only animals affected with global warming. Global warming isn't only affecting polar regions but the whole planet. Yes, Arctic is really rapidly melting making polar bears survival very questionable, but thousands of other animal species are struggling as well.

Many scientists believe how global warming will not have the worst impact on animals that live in polar regions but on the ones that live in tropics. Many tropical animal species are at great jeopardy of going extinct even with the temperature rise of just a degree or two simply because these species are familiar to live in environment within a very small temperature range, and any temperature increase above this range is likely to cause their extinction as they will have not enough time to adapt.

Adaptation to new climate conditions will mean the difference between survival and extinction for many animal species. The ones that will be able to adapt will have chance for survival while others will end up in history books under "animals that used to live on our planet". Though this situation looks like the nature's "survival of the strongest" there's still very big difference between nature selection and "global warming selection". While nature knows exactly how much time certain species need to adapt to new conditions, man-made global warming is coming to soon, not giving enough time to species to adapt, therefore heavily decreasing their chances for survival.

Global warming currently isn't No.1 problem mostly responsible for so many endangered animals around the globe. No.1 problem still remains habitat loss but if global warming strengthens its impact in years to come, many more animals will be listed as endangered, and many will forever perish from the face of the Earth. Biodiversity loss is already huge ecological problem, and if world fails to stop global warming impact this problem will soon reach catastrophic proportions.

This planet does not only belong to us, as we are not the only living creatures on earth. Animals also have the right to live, and we must not only care for our survival but for their survival as well, because we must not forget that all species are connected in so called "circle of life". Global warming is one of the biggest problems in human history and the destiny of our planet is in our hands. Circle of life does not include only us but plants and animals too, and without the circle of life there's no life at all.