A recent study published in the journal Nature shows how the effects of climate change on the timing of specific events in natures calendar could cause serious problems for animals and plants.These events can be anything from when animals wake up from hibernation, start breeding or when plants begin to flower (the scientific name for the timing of life cycle events based on seasonal changes is phenology).
You may remember at school learning about food webs – just one of many complex interactions between different species. If one species is more affected by climate change than another, their body clocks could get out of sync. Consequently, any interaction between the two species becomes disrupted. In the case of a food web, this could mean that a prey item could become unavailable at a critical time of year when a predator relies on that particular food source for survival. If this changes the abundance of predators due to lack of food availability, this could have knock on effects up and down the whole food chain as the natural order becomes unbalanced. This can threaten the very functionality of whole ecosystems.
The study in Nature found that the trophic level (where an organism is positioned in a food chain) had an impact on the extent to which species’ timing was effected by climate change. Secondary consumers (the animals that eat the herbivores) were least effected in terms of their sensitivity to climate events. Primary consumers (the herbivores) were found to be the most likely to change the timing of events in response to climate change. This could have profound consequences for our native wildlife and protected species.
The original paper can be found here.
Acer Ecology have written a series of blog posts which consider climate change and other environmental issues which may affect the environment industry, click here to find out more.
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