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Climate change will worsen species extinction in South America Rhett A. Butler, mongabay.com February 28, 2007
Modeling future ecosystem structure, distribution of precipitation, and land use, Dr. Paul A. T. Higgins says the conditions currently favorable for species richness in the Guiana Shield region of South America, one of the world's most biodiverse areas, disappear as CO2 levels rise and shift rainfall patterns. In the absence of land-use change, this loss would likely be offset by increasingly favorable climate conditions in eastern Brazil -- currently a dry region. However, notes Higgins, widespread modification of ecosystems in Eastern Brazil precludes this development, producing an overall net reduction in biological richness in the region. "Human activities will alter current configurations of land use and climate throughout the world," writes Higgins, a biologist at Stanford University and the University of California, Berkeley. "For species richness, new configurations are likely to include both positive and negative combinations of climate and land use."
Extrapolating at the global scale, Higgins says the results suggest that "climate change and land-use patterns will be likely to interact to reduce species richness." He says that migratory barriers like urban and agricultural areas will make it more difficult for species to respond to climate change as they would have in the past. Higgins is also a Senior Policy Fellow at the American Meteorological Society in Washington, DC. CITATION: Paul A. T. Higgins (2007). Biodiversity loss under existing land use and climate change: an illustration using northern South America. Global Ecology and Biogeography, (Global Ecol. Biogeogr.) 16, 197—204 Related article Global warming could trigger 8-degree temperature rise in Amazon rainforest Tuesday the Brazilian government announced the release of a series of scientific studies, including one by the national space agency (INPE) that projects a 4 to 8 degree-Celcius rise in temperatures in the Amazon Basin by 2100 if nothing is done to combat global climate change. More news on Brazil and the Amazon Comments? News options
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