Jul

31

2008
 
 

Patchy chances



Small species ranges increase extinction risk, study finds

glacial lakeSpecies with small ranges face a greater extinction risk from climate change, according to a paper published this week in Biology Letters. University of Durham researcher Ralf Ohlemüller – now at York – and colleagues studied species ranges in European butterflies and plants and Western Hemisphere birds, and noticed a link between rare pockets of habitat and smaller species ranges. Those rare patches — at unusually high or low altitude compared to the surrounding landscape, for example — and their atypical species composition and diversity, are likely relicts from the last ice age. Species there have clung onto survival under the warmer climes they’ve experienced since, but they are particularly vulnerable to the impact of future climate change, being marooned in ever-shrinking oases. Source: Ohlemüller R, Anderson BJ, Araújo MB, Butchart SHM, Kudrna O, Ridgely RS & Thomas CD (2008) The coincidence of climatic and species rarity: high risk to small-range species from climate change. Biol. Lett. DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2008.0097

Image: © Ljupco Smokovski

Filed Under Climate change, Endangered species, Habitat | 

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