Analysing data for over 2000 responses by animal and plant species

 

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Analysing data for over 2000 responses by animal and plant species, scientists estimated that, on average, species have moved to higher elevations at 12.2 metres per decade and, more dramatically, to higher latitudes at 17.6 kilometres per decade.

Published in the latest issue of the leading scientific journal Science, the study for the first time shows that species have moved furthest in regions where the climate has warmed the most.

Birds, mammals, reptiles, insects, spiders, other invertebrates, and plants featured in the evidence.


”These changes are equivalent to animals and plants shifting away from the Equator at around 20 cm per hour, for every hour of the day, for every day of the year. This has been going on for the last 40 years and is set to continue for at least the rest of this century”, stated Project leader Chris Thomas, Professor of Conservation Biology at York.

Diversity of changes

The study conclusions hold for the average responses of species, but individual species showed much greater variation. Some species have moved much more slowly than expected, others have not moved, and some have even retreated where they are expected to expand. In contrast, other species have raced ahead, possibly due to sensitivities to a particular component of climate change (rather than to average warming), or because other changes to the environment have also been driving their responses.

Co-author Dr David Roy, from the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, illustrates this variation among species: “In Britain, the high brown fritillary butterfly might have been expected to expand northwards into Scotland if climate warming was the only thing affecting it, but it has in fact declined because its habitats have been lost. Meanwhile, the comma butterfly has moved 220 kilometres northwards from central England to Edinburgh, in only two decades.”

Similar variation has taken place in other animal groups. Cetti’s warbler, a small brown bird with a loud voice, moved northwards in Britain by 150 kilometres during the same period when the Cirl bunting retreated southward by 120 kilometres, the latter experiencing a major decline associated with the intensification of agriculture.

Implications

The current research does not explicitly consider the risks posed to species from climate change, but previous studies suggest that climate change represents a serious extinction risk to at least 10 per cent of the world’s species.

Project leader Chris Thomas commented: “Realisation of how fast species are moving because of climate change indicates that many species may indeed be heading rapidly towards extinction, where climatic conditions are deteriorating. On the other hand, other species are moving to new areas where the climate has become suitable; so there will be some winners as well as many losers.”