Climate change is producing numerous sequelae on our planet, such as the increase in temperatures through global warming, the melting of the ice of the poles with the consequent increase in sea level and strong meteorological phenomena. However, there is another consequence that seems to be less known, and that is that climate change is negatively influencing many species whose survival is being compromised, that is, it is affecting the planet’s biodiversity. What is happening to these species? In ecology, we explain to you how climate change affects biodiversity.
What is biodiversity
We could define biodiversity as the whole Variability of living beingswhether animals or vegetables, which are on Earth, including the ecosystems and complexes of those that are part of such as prairies, steppes, forests or ecosystems of continental and marine waters, among others. Therefore, it is the set of Biological variety of the planetalthough we can also refer to the variety of living beings in a specific area of the planet.
How important is biodiversity
Biodiversity that forms ecosystems provides numerous goods and services that are essential for the survival of the human being. Numerous rural communities need the benefits of natural environment for their ways of life.
But this biodiversity, regardless of its benefits towards us, has a intrinsic value in itself. In addition, ecosystems play a fundamental role in biogeochemical processes responsible for the functioning of terrestrial systems.
What is climate change
Climate change is the name given to the change in the weather patterns of the entire planet Earth, when it occurs significantly and hard over time, extending in a variable period of time, being able to last from decades to millions of years.
Climate variability is normal per seit has always been given on our planet, the most important being the variations that have occurred in the glacier and interglacial cycles, which have happened over 100,000 years. However, currently these climatic variations have been increased mostly due to human causes. Consequently, scientists currently continue working to understand what the past climate was like and, thus, to be able to make an approximation of how this can be in the future, thanks to the elaboration of a climate record.
What effect does climate change on biodiversity have
The loss of biodiversity It has various causes among which are:
- The overexploitation of the natural environment.
- The loss of species habitats.
- Environmental pollution.
- The introduction of invasive exotic species.
- The effects of climate change, which possibly before the end of the century, will be considered the main cause of the loss of biological diversity.
Climate change is increasingly affecting the survival capacity of numerous species unable to adapt their needs to new environmental conditions (migrating, changing their behavior patterns or through genetic modifications, which entails a very high temporal space), its conservation is difficult. This is especially notorious in populations of species with a low number of individuals or populations that, due to the place where they live (such as islands, high mountain areas or peninsulas), are not able to move to other similar habitats.
Climate change has many points of action on species biodiversity. Some of the points that respond to how climate change affects biodiversity are:
- It alters basic functions of living beings, such as their growth rate or behavior patterns.
- It produces changes in species populations, modifying their size or structure.
- It affects the structure of ecosystems and cycles in which they intervene, such as the decomposition, cycles and recycling processes of nutrients, water flows or interspecific interactions (between species).
- Landscape modifications of ecosystems.
- Changes in the intensity and regimes of these alterations that affect species and ecosystems.
If these changes continue to be produced more and more intensely, biodiversity will be severely threatened with serious consequences, such as the extinction of a high number of species.
Solutions to loss of biodiversity for climate change
All actions aimed at Keep biodiversity They must have as its main premise the adaptation to the climate change of the species. To do this, a key point would be to integrate biodiversity conservation policies and those destined to alleviate climate change.
The European Union raised a series of measures to deal with these effects on biodiversity and climate change ecosystems. These propose to protect the integrity of the various ecosystems, as well as their recovery ability to these adverse conditions (resilience). On the other hand, decisions taken must encourage the conservation of natural spaces, especially, of protected natural spaces, which are increasing.
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