Common Plants, Animals to Lose Habitat due to Climate Change

According to a new study, numbers of common plants and animals will see a huge dip in this century due to climate changes.

The study was conducted by a research team led by Rachel Warren from University of East Anglia. For the study, researchers looked at 50,000 plants and animals that are spread across the world. They found that at least half of these plants and a third of all animals are bound to lose their natural climate range by the year 2080.

If nothing is done about global warming, researchers say, the plants and animals will lose their natural habitats, and as a consequence, see a decline in their population.

Sub-Saharan Africa, Central America, Amazonia and Australia will lose more plants and animals than other parts of the world, the study found.

"While there has been much research on the effect of climate change on rare and endangered species, little has been known about how an increase in global temperature will affect more common species," said Dr. Rachel Warren from the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at UEA. "This broader issue of potential range loss in widespread species is a serious concern as even small declines in these species can significantly disrupt ecosystems.

However, acting on climate change now can give plants and animals more time to adjust to climate change, researchers found. Without mitigation, global temperatures can rise up to 4 degrees by 2100.

"The good news is that our research provides crucial new evidence of how swift action to reduce CO2 and other greenhouse gases can prevent the biodiversity loss by reducing the amount of global warming to 2 degrees Celsius rather than 4 degrees. This would also buy time - up to four decades - for plants and animals to adapt to the remaining 2 degrees of climate change," Warren said in a news release.

The study is published in the journal Nature Climate Change.