A new study published in the journal Science has astounded biologists: global warming is not harming biodiversity, but instead is increasing the range and diversity of species in various ecosystems.
Environmentalists have long warned that global warming could lead to mass extinctions as fragile ecosystems around the world are made unlivable as temperatures increase. But a team of biologists from the United States, United Kingdom and Japan found that global warming has not led to a decrease in biodiversity. Instead, biodiversity has increased in many areas on land and in the ocean.
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“Although the rate of species extinction has increased markedly as a result of human activity across the biosphere, conservation has focused on endangered species rather than on shifts in assemblages,” reads the editor’s abstract of the report.
The study says “species turnover” was “above expected but do not find evidence of systematic biodiversity loss.” The editor’s abstract adds that the result “could be caused by homogenization of species assemblages by invasive species, shifting distributions induced by climate change, and asynchronous change across the planet.”
Researchers reviewed 100 long-term species monitoring studies from around the world and found increasing biodiversity in 59 out of 100 studies and decreasing biodiversity in 41 studies. The rate of change in biodiversity was modest in all of the studies, biologists said.
Read more at http://barbwire.com/2014/05/15/global-warming-is-increasing-biodiversity-around-the-world/#UZmRmudy1yhgTzcl.99
