Study finds climate changes faster than species can adapt

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://newsinfo.iu.edu/news/page/normal/20515.html

Last modified: Monday, December 5, 2011

Study finds climate changes faster than species can adapt

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Dec. 5, 2011

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- The ranges of species will have to change dramatically as a result of climate change between now and 2100 because the climate will change more than 100 times faster than the rate at which species can adapt, according to a newly published study by Indiana University researchers.

The study, which focuses on North American rattlesnakes, finds that the rate of future change in suitable habitat will be two to three orders of magnitude greater than the average change over the past 300 millennia, a time that included three major glacial cycles and significant variation in climate and temperature.

"We find that, over the next 90 years, at best these species' ranges will change more than 100 times faster than they have during the past 320,000 years," said Michelle Lawing, lead author of the paper and a doctoral candidate in geological sciences and biology at IU Bloomington. "This rate of change is unlike anything these species have experienced, probably since their formation."

The study, "Pleistocene Climate, Phylogeny, and Climate Envelope Models: An Integrative Approach to Better Understand Species' Response to Climate Change," was published by the online science journal PLoS One. Co-author is P. David Polly, associate professor in the Department of Geological Sciences in the IU Bloomington College of Arts and Sciences.

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http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0028554

[Chemisse]

1. Some creatures will adapt quickly enough - insects and bacteria come to mind

Not a very pretty future if we don't halt this very soon!

[Jackpine Radical]

2. Cockroaches & rats too.

Which may mean that the Republicans will inherit the Earth.

[libinnyandia]

3. I wish duers would stop insulting animals by comparing them to

Republicans. God's creatures were created to have a role in nature. Republicans only role seems to be promoting the destruction of the Earth. So many of them are waiting eagerly for the Final Days.

[Jackpine Radical]

4. Everyone has a role in the Universe.

For Republicans, that role seems mostly to involve serving as a negative example and warning to others.

[OKIsItJustMe]

5. If only they would confine themselves to being warnings to others

and not the destruction of others…