Defenders Magazine
Get Defenders Headlines
Get the latest wildlife conservation news and information... right when we post it online.
Defenders Magazine
Wildlife: Too Hot to Trot
Trouble in Paradise
The polar bear has become the poster child for the effects of global warming, but new research out of the University of Washington shows that species living in the tropics are also on the hot seat. Many tropical insect species, as well as frogs, lizards and turtles, can only tolerate slight changes in temperature because the climate they are used to is constant throughout the year—and already pretty sizzling. This means even a one- or two-degree change in global temperatures could make the tropics too hot to handle for too many.
Carbon Consequences
From the seas to the trees, scientists are finding that species with specialized eating habits are at risk from global warming. Admired by divers around the world, the widespread chevron butterflyfish is now at risk of extinction as global warming continues to kill the coral it relies upon, according to researchers at James Cook University in Australia and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in Massachusetts. It eats nothing but one sort of coral that is being hit hard by rising ocean temperatures.
And for Australia's koalas, notoriously fussy eaters that dine solely on tough eucalyptus leaves, life is getting even rougher. Increased carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere from global warming are crippling their food supply, reducing the available nutrient level of the already deficient leaves, according to researchers from several Australian universities. Soon these tree-loving marsupials may not be able to get the protein they need to reproduce.
Both species are already threatened by other problems: Koalas face drought, development and exotic species; and butterfly fish face exploitation by the aquarium trade as well as coral die-off from excessive fertilizer, sediment and pollution.
Unless action is taken soon, global warming could just be the final punch that knocks them off the planet.
