UCLA life scientists present new insights on climate change and species interactions

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/ucla-life-scientists-provide-new-245697.aspx

[font face=Serif][font size=5]UCLA life scientists present new insights on climate change and species interactions[/font]

By UCLA Newsroom May 21, 2013

[font size=3]UCLA life scientists provide important new details on how climate change will affect interactions between species in research published online May 21 in the Journal of Animal Ecology. This knowledge, they say, is critical to making accurate predictions and informing policymakers of how species are likely to be impacted by rising temperatures.

"There is a growing recognition among biologists that climate change is affecting how species interact with one another, and that this is going to have very important consequences for the stability and functioning of ecosystems," said the senior author of the research, Van Savage, an assistant professor of ecology and evolutionary biology and of biomathematics at UCLA. "However, there is still a very limited understanding of exactly what these changes will be. Our paper makes progress on this very important question."

Climate change is causing global increases in mean temperature, as well as more fluctuations and greater variability in temperature. Growing evidence suggests these changes are altering when and how species interact, and even which species are able to interact without going extinct, Savage said.

Already, climatic warming is rapidly altering the timing and rate of flowering in plants, as well as breeding and migration in animals — changes that are likely to disrupt interactions between species.

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http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1365-2656.12081

[GliderGuider]

1. I wonder what on earth policymakers can do about it?