Extinction risk from climate change

Article

关键词: BIODIVERSITY;    IMPACTS;    DEFORESTATION;    CO2;    VULNERABILITY;   

DOI  :  10.1038/nature02121

来源: SCIE

【 摘 要 】

Climate change over the past similar to30 years has produced numerous shifts in the distributions and abundances of species(1,2) and has been implicated in one species-level extinction(3). Using projections of species' distributions for future climate scenarios, we assess extinction risks for sample regions that cover some 20% of the Earth's terrestrial surface. Exploring three approaches in which the estimated probability of extinction shows a powerlaw relationship with geographical range size, we predict, on the basis of mid-range climate-warming scenarios for 2050, that 15 - 37% of species in our sample of regions and taxa will be 'committed to extinction'. When the average of the three methods and two dispersal scenarios is taken, minimal climate-warming scenarios produce lower projections of species committed to extinction (similar to18%) than mid-range (similar to24%) and maximum-change (similar to35%) scenarios. These estimates show the importance of rapid implementation of technologies to decrease greenhouse gas emissions and strategies for carbon sequestration.

【 授权许可】

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