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Nearly one-tenth of hemisphere's mammals unlikely to outrun climatechange by 123wert sdfsf
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Nearly one-tenth of hemisphere's mammals unlikely to outrun climatechange by 123WERT SDFSF
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| Article Posted: 08/29/2013 |
| Article Views: 124 |
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Nearly one-tenth of hemisphere's mammals unlikely to outrun climatechange |
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A safe haven could be out of reach for 9 percent of the WesternHemisphere's mammals, and as much as 40 percent in certain regions,because the animals just won't move swiftly enough to outpaceclimate change. For the past decade scientists have outlined newareas suitable for mammals likely to be displaced as climate changefirst makes their current habitat inhospitable, then unlivable. For the first time a new study considers whether mammals willactually be able to move to those new areas before they are overrunby climate change. Carrie Schloss, University of Washington research analyst inenvironmental and forest sciences, is lead author of the paper outonline the week of May 14 in the Proceedings of the NationalAcademy of Sciences.
"We underestimate the vulnerability of mammals to climate changewhen we look at projections of areas with suitable climate but wedon't also include the ability of mammals to move, or disperse, tothe new areas," Schloss said. Indeed, more than half of the species scientists have in the pastprojected could expand their ranges in the face of climate changewill, instead, see their ranges contract because the animals won'tbe able to expand into new areas fast enough, said co-author JoshLawler, UW associate professor of environmental and forestsciences. In particular, many of the hemisphere's species of primates -including tamarins, spider monkeys, marmosets and howler monkeys,some of which are already considered threatened or endangered -will be hard-pressed to outpace climate change, as are the group ofspecies that includes shrews and moles. Winners of the climatechange race are likely to come from carnivores like coyotes andwolves, the group that includes deer and caribou, and one thatincludes armadillos and anteaters.
The analysis looked at 493 mammals in the Western Hemisphereranging from a moose that weighs 1,800 pounds to a shrew thatweighs less than a dime. Only climate change was considered and notother factors that cause animals to disperse, such as competitionfrom other species. To determine how quickly species must move to new ranges to outpaceclimate change, UW researchers used previous work by Lawler thatreveals areas with climates needed by each species, along with howfast climate change might occur based on 10 global climate modelsand a mid-high greenhouse gas emission scenario developed by the UNIntergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The UW researchers coupled how swiftly a species is able todisperse across the landscape with how often its members make sucha move.
In this case, the scientists assumed animals dispersed oncea generation. It's understandable, for example, that a mouse might not get toofar because of its size. But if there are many generations borneach a year, then that mouse is on the move regularly compared to amammal that stays several years with its parents in one placebefore being old enough to reproduce and strike out for newterritory. Western Hemisphere primates, for example, take several years beforethey are sexually mature. That contributes to their low-dispersalrate and is one reason they look especially vulnerable to climatechange, Schloss said.
Another reason is that the territory withsuitable climate is expected to shrink and so to reach the newareas animals in the tropics must generally go farther than inmountainous regions, where animals can more quickly move to adifferent elevation and a climate that suits them. Those factors mean that nearly all the hemisphere's primates willexperience severe reductions in their ranges, Schloss said, onaverage about 75 percent. At the same time species with highdispersal rates that face slower-paced climate change are expectedto expand their ranges. "Our figures are a fairly conservative - even optimistic - view ofwhat could happen because our approach assumes that animals alwaysgo in the direction needed to avoid climate change and at themaximum rate possible for them," Lawler said. The researchers were also conservative, he said, in taking intoaccount human-made obstacles such as cities and crop lands thatanimals encounter.
For the overall analysis they used a previouslydeveloped formula of "average human influence" that highlightsregions where animals are likely to encounter intense humandevelopment. It doesn't take into account transit time if animalsmust go completely around human-dominated landscapes. "I think it's important to point out that in the past when climateshave changed - between glacial and interglacial periods whenspecies ranges contracted and expanded - the landscape wasn'tcovered with agricultural fields, four-lane highways and parkinglots, so species could move much more freely across the landscape,"Lawler said. "Conservation planners could help some species keep pace withclimate change by focusing on connectivity - on linking togetherareas that could serve as pathways to new territories, particularlywhere animals will encounter human-land development," Schloss said.
"For species unable to keep pace, reducing non-climate-relatedstressors could help make populations more resilient, butultimately reducing emissions, and therefore reducing the pace ofclimate change, may be the only certain method to make sure speciesare able to keep pace with climate change." The third co-author of the paper is Tristan Nunez, now atUniversity of California, Berkeley. Both Schloss and Nunez workedwith Lawler while earning their master's degrees. Lawler did thiswork with support from the UW School of Environmental and ForestSciences using, in part, models he previously developed withfunding from the Nature Conservancy and the Cedar Tree Foundation. I am Apparel writer, reports some information about women's leather blazers , men's nylon underwear.
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