Global warming could wipe out six types of butterflies during the next 35 years, including heat-sensitive species such as the Cabbage White and Speckled Wood, experts from the UK’s Centre for Ecology & Hydrology reported this week in the journal Nature Climate Change.
In fact, even the lowest anticipated levels of warming coupled with habitat loss could decimate populations of these drought-sensitive creatures across the UK, according to BBC News reports. However, they also found that reducing greenhouse gas emissions and the habitat fragmentation of these species could help mitigate the effects of the increasing temperatures.
Lead author Dr. Tom Oliver called the results “worrying” in a statement, adding that he “hadn’t quite realized the magnitude and potential impacts from climate change” prior to the new study. For these butterflies, he said, “widespread population extinctions are expected by 2050,” and the only way to combat them is through both habitat restoration and CO2 emission reduction.
The southeastern parts of England could be the worst affected, the researchers told BBC News, but if warming conditions become less extreme and the habitats become reconnected, the probability of butterfly survival could increase by as much as 50 percent.
Habitat restoration could help mitigate the effects
As part of their research, Dr. Oliver and his colleagues studied how 28 different butterfly species responded to an extreme drought in 1995 (the driest summer in the UK since 1776). They found that six out of the 28 – the green-veined white, ringlet, speckled wood, large skipper, large white, and small white butterflies – suffered dramatic post-drought declines, said Live Science.
The study authors went on to use computer models to examine how the six most-affected species could recover in the four years following a drought, and created monitoring sites to monitor them in semi-natural habitats over a 1.9-mile (3km) radius, the website added. Species that had access to more habitats tended to recover more quickly than those with less available terrain.
“There’s good news and bad news here,” said co-author Mike Morecroft from Natural England. “The good news is that we can increase the resilience of species to climate change by improving our natural environment, particularly increasing areas of habitat and we are working hard at this. However, this approach will only work if climate change is limited by effective controls on greenhouse gas emissions.”
“If our habitats are very fragmented, the impacts will be much more severe. In places where it isn’t those populations might persist,” Dr. Oliver told BBC News. “It allows us to buy time until we get those global emission cuts in place.”
(Image credit: Thinkstock)
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