Researchers warn that if this trend continues, entire species could disappear, leading to the collapse of ecosystems.
A new study led by an ecology and evolutionary biologist at UC Santa Cruz finds that temperature changes caused by climate change have a doubly detrimental impact: not only do they destabilize animal populations, but their effects accelerate as temperatures change more rapidly.
Published Nature, the study, conducted by an international team of researchers, found that temperature shifts—whether warming or cooling—drive changes in the composition of species within an ecosystem. The findings also suggest that behavioral adaptation and shifting species interactions are insufficient to maintain species composition amid increasingly rapid temperature fluctuations.
“It’s like shuffling a deck of cards, and temperature change now is shuffling that deck faster and faster,” said lead author Malin Pinsky, associate professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at UC Santa Cruz. “The worry is that eventually you start to lose some cards.”
The study’s findings are unique because the impacts of temperature change have often not been clear on land or in freshwater ecosystems. While impacts on ocean species have been more overt, and therefore easier to measure, plants and animals on land adapt in subtler ways, the researchers said
Unlike ocean animals, those on land can often move short distances to find new locations that better suit their temperature needs. Though this can mitigate the effects of temperature change a bit, this research finds that terrestrial creatures are still susceptible to destabilization and replacement due to temperature change. In their paper, the researchers focus on the rates of species replacement, which refers to the loss and gain of species over time. While this happens naturally, they found that the rate of replacement is increasing due to faster temperature changes.
If that trend continues, species could be lost and ecosystems could begin to break down, the study concludes. The most effective ways to avoid these outcomes are to avoid further global warming, preserve landscapes with a diversity of temperatures, and reduce the alteration of natural environments. Benefits could include more abundant wildlife, clean water, and clean air.
“Temperature affects everything from how fast the heart beats to how flexible and porous our cell membranes are; from how much food animals eat to how fast plants grow,” said Pinsky. “Temperature is in many ways the metronome for life.”
Why diverse environments are important
In addition, the researchers found that species in ecosystems with less-varied habitats were more sensitive to temperature change than those with more diverse temperatures nearby. For example, if a person stood in an open field during summer and started to overheat, there would be nowhere cooler to hide. But if a forest were nearby, one could simply move into the shade of a tree to cool down. The paper concludes that plants and animals take advantage of habitat variation to buffer themselves against major temperature swings. Living near these temperature escapes allows organisms to move nearby for relief, rather than going extinct or being replaced entirely.
Whether due to natural conditions or human interference, not all environments have a diversity of temperatures to help protect the species that live in them. It is these animals that are most at risk due to faster temperature changes. Understanding the differing needs of species living in more or less varied environments can help society identify which ecosystems need the most attention and protection, the study concludes.
“Establishing this explicit link between rates of climate change and rates of species turnover allows us to better understand how changing temperatures can impact different ecosystems,” said senior author Shane Blowes, from Germany’s Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) and Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg. “Pinpointing factors that impact the rate of local species replacement can help prioritize conservation actions.”
How human activity impacts turnover
Importantly, the researchers found that human impacts like land use, pollution, and introduction of invasive species exacerbate the impacts of temperature change on species replacement. This is possibly due to human activity reducing the diversity of landscapes and increasing stress on species that are already near their temperature limits.
To conserve ecosystems and their benefits to people, humans can help by “preserving more natural habitats, reducing pollution, and reducing the spread of invasive species,” Pinsky said. “In the ocean, factors like reduced fishing pressure and protecting habitats are important and helpful.”
Reference: “Warming and cooling catalyse widespread temporal turnover in biodiversity” by Malin L. Pinsky, Helmut Hillebrand, Jonathan M. Chase, Laura H. Antão, Myriam R. Hirt, Ulrich Brose, Michael T. Burrows, Benoit Gauzens, Benjamin Rosenbaum and Shane A. Blowes, 29 January 2025, Nature.
DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-08456-z
The paper’s other authors include Helmut Hillebrand at the University of Oldenburg in Wilhelmshaven, Germany; Jonathan Chase, also from iDiv and Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg; and researchers from the Institute of Biodiversity at Friedrich Schiller University in Jena, Germany, the Research Centre for Ecological Change at the University of Helsinki, and the Scottish Association for Marine Science in the UK.
Main funders for the study include the National Science Foundation, iDiv, and the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity.
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4 Comments
“…, but their effects accelerate as temperatures change more rapidly.”
This is a claimed change for which the supporting facts are not in evidence. For starters, there has only been about 1 deg C increase in air temperatures the last century, of which, most is at night and in the Winter. Since about 1964, modern instrumental measurements show no such acceleration; the graph is very linear. The oceans, as a result of having a much larger Specific Heat Capacity, have changed even more slowly.
Despite modern instrumentation, our understanding of the behavior of air temperatures is less than desired. This is because of the long-term practice of reporting the mid-range temperatures ([Tmax-Tmin]/2), a special case of a median with only two measurements, which is particularly sensitive to outliers, with varying sample times.
The extrapolation to the future, based on speculation without support, is no stronger that the weak evidence in the properties of the assumed driver. At ‘best,’ there may be extirpations locally. However, surprisingly, there have been discoveries recently of species, assumed to be extinct, still present with breeding populations.
However, environmental changes are the engine of evolution, with individual species extinctions opening up ecological niches, acting like the fuel of that engine.
“…, the study, conducted by an international team of researchers …”
Is this an example of ‘Group Think?’
“Unlike ocean animals, those on land can often move short distances to find new locations that better suit their temperature needs.”
Only sessile marine organisms of a current generation are incapable of re-locating. However, they overcome that handicap by disseminating ovum and sperm in huge quantities that are widely dispersed by ocean currents. That is really little different from land plants rooted in soil that disperse their genetics either with wind dispersion, or offering fruit with indigestible seeds that insects and mammals disperse in their feces.
The author(s) apparently didn’t think this through carefully. More than one of their claims is illogical.
“But if a forest were nearby, one could simply move into the shade of a tree to cool down.”
However, short of hibernating, what does an animal, that doesn’t live in the moderate climate of the Santa Cruz Mountains, do in the wintertime? It can’t just walk out of the forest to warm up when it is overcast and -40 degrees. Extremes test the survivability of species and determine the boundaries for which they are adapted. I think that living and teaching in the coast range in Northern California has not sharpened Dr. Pinsky’s insight into the bigger picture of ecology.