HOME >> BIOLOGY >> NEWS
Shrinking biodiversity?

What effects will Earth's changing climate have on natural ecosystems? Which wild species are most at risk in coming decades for reduced range or even extinction? In a paper in this week's journal Nature, a team of researchers from the University of Kansas Natural History Museum and Biodiversity Research Center (UKNHM), the Universidad Nacional Autnoma de Mxico (UNAM), and the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) at the University of California, San Diego, report on the first analysis of the potential impacts of climate change for an entire country, Mexico, including all species of mammals and birds as well as many species of butterflies -- some 1,870 species.

This interdisciplinary research, supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the government of Mexico and led by A. Townsend Peterson of the University of Kansas Natural History Museum and Biodiversity Research Center (UKNHM), relied on extensive collections of species data assembled by Mexico's biodiversity commission, CONABIO, and a powerful software program, the Genetic Algorithm for Rule-Set Prediction (GARP), created by SDSC's David Stockwell, which ran on a supercomputer provided by the NSF-funded National Partnership for Advanced Computational Infrastructure (NPACI).

In a nutshell, what the researchers found is that over the next 50 years the changing climate is predicted to bring about great instability for wildlife, reshuffling ecosystems and throwing new predators and prey together as new diseases and parasites are introduced, with a majority of species having smaller geographical ranges than today. "In some local communities more than 40 percent of species are expected to turn over, which will lead to a cascade of further effects," said Peterson, lead author of the Nature paper. "If you remove enough species from an ecosystem, it's like the old child's game of pick-up-sticks -- there are only so many changes you can make before the ecosystem just rearranges, and maybe s
'"/>

Contact: David Hart
dhart@sdsc.edu
858-534-8314
University of California - San Diego
10-Apr-2002


Page: 1 2 3 4 5

Related biology news :

1. Some Atlantic Coast Beaches Are Shrinking While Floridas Beaches Better Off Than Most
2. Where is the worlds greatest biodiversity? Smithsonian scientists find the answer is a question of scale

Post Your Comments:
*Name:
*Comment:
*Email:
TAG: Shrinking biodiversity

(Date:5/17/2013)... An international team of scientists using a new ... inside a living frog embryo in greater detail than ... advance biological research and the search for new treatments ... Karlsruher Institut fr Technologie in Germany, in collaboration with ... Energy,s Argonne National Laboratory, released the most precise depiction ...
(Date:5/16/2013)... (Maximizing Access to Research Careers) Program has announced ... Developmental Biology (SDB) 72nd Annual Meeting in Cancun, ... meant to promote the entry of students, postdoctorates ... of the basic science community and to encourage ... 2013 Annual Meeting. , Awards are given to ...
(Date:5/16/2013)... shown a gene involved in neurodegenerative disease also plays ... circadian clock. , In a study of the ... Ataxin-2, keeps the clock responsible for sleeping and waking ... of the fruit fly,s sleep-wake cycle is disturbed, making ... fly. , The discovery is particularly interesting because ...
Breaking Biology News(10 mins):New X-ray method shows how frog embryos could help thwart disease 2Gene involved in neurodegeneration keeps clock running 2
(Date:5/20/2013)... Kitware, a leader in data visualization, today ... exploration of hospital costs across the United States ... recent release of “Medicare Provider Charge Data,” a dataset ... from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. , ... hospitals across the country has sparked considerable controversy; however, ...
(Date:5/20/2013)... (PRWEB) May 20, 2013 The World ... the appointment of Lisa Baird as Executive Director. ... 8, 2013. The WMIS vision is to ... to understand and effectively treat diseases in the developed ... (WMIS) was established in 2011 by integrating the Academy ...
(Date:5/19/2013)... Boston, MA (PRWEB) May 19, 2013 ... providing social media training online, has proudly announced that ... for small business has surpassed 175,000 views on YouTube. ... free social media and SEO tips and training for ... see my students find the YouTube tips helpful for ...
(Date:5/17/2013)... Dr. Sparano is Professor of Medicine and ... Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Associate Chairman of ... He is also Associate Director for Clinical Research ... Breast Cancer Working Group, a multidisciplinary group of physicians ... also serves as Vice Chair of the National Cancer ...
Breaking Biology Technology:Kitware Enables Interactive Exploration of CMS Medicare Data 2WMIS Appoints Lisa Baird as Next Executive Director 2YouTube Channel on SEO Tips Surpasses 175,000 Views, Announces JM Internet Group 2Joseph A. Sparano, MD, Named Vice Chair of ECOG-ACRIN Cancer Research Group 2Joseph A. Sparano, MD, Named Vice Chair of ECOG-ACRIN Cancer Research Group 3
Cached News: