The world’s tropical regions are home to the widest range of plants and animals, but research from The University of Queensland reveals that climate change is pushing species away, and fast.
The world’s tropical regions are home to the widest range of plants and animals, but research from The University of Queensland reveals that climate change is pushing species away, and fast.
UQ ARC Future Fellow Dr Tatsuya Amano led an international team that reviewed more than 1.3 million records of waterbird species, and found temperature increase is drastically affecting species abundance in the tropics.
Dr Amano said the findings showed climate change continued to post a serious threat to biodiversity.
“There’s an urgent need to understand how species respond to changing climates on a global scale,” Dr Amano said.
“Earlier global reviews have rarely included species and studies in the tropics – being largely conducted in Europe, North America, Australia and the Arctic.
“As a result, although tropical species have long been predicted to be more vulnerable to increasing temperature, there was little empirical evidence on how climate change really affects species abundance in the tropics.”
Read more at University Of Queensland
Image: The painted stork (Mycteria leucocephala) is a large wader in the stork family, found in the wetlands of the plains of tropical Asia. Credit: Saketh Upadhya.
