Climate Change may not be only threat to vulnerable species: Study

Amid the growing concern on climate change, a study by author Lyn Morelli indicates that climate change may not be the only threat to species of the planet in the present scenario. The researcher who studied the effects of deforestation on two species of Lemur’s study about Climate Change has been published in the Journal Nature Climate Change. 

The study suggested that species on the globe are facing pressure and getting affected by many other factors--like overhunting, overharvesting, habitat degradation, fragmentation in addition to climate change. In order to understand these threats, the researchers have modelled the effects of deforestation and climate change on two critically endangered ruffed lemur species.

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 "Ruffed lemurs and rainforests rely on each other. Remove one and the system collapses," said Andrea Baden, co-author of the study.

The researchers merged data from 88 years of reporting on how deforestation will affect ruffed lemurs. Research at thousands of different sites on Madagascar Island had been conducted to measure the effect.

They estimated that suitable rainforest habitat could be reduced by as much as 59 per cent from deforestation and as much as 75 per cent from climate change alone, and almost entirely lost from both before 2080.

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"Maintaining and enhancing the integrity of protected areas, where rates of forest loss are lower, will be essential for ensuring the persistence of the diversity of the rapidly-diminishing Malagasy rainforests," said Morelli

"This research reminds us that there are other threats to biodiversity. We show that deforestation continues to be an imminent threat to conservation," added Morelli

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Research carried in the wake of Climate Change has put the lives of millions of species in question.

Overall, "We challenge the conservation community to contemplate what should be done if nearly all of Madagascar's rainforest habitat were to be lost," the researchers wrote in the study.

This year in November, a study indicated that Climate change may cause the levels of greenhouse gases emitted by freshwater northern lakes to increase by between 1.5 and 2.7 times. Researchers from the University of Cambridge in the UK noted that every drop of freshwater contains thousands of different organic molecules that have previously gone unnoticed.

(With inputs from ANI)

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