Global analysis of where the diversity of vertebrate animals would most benefit from aggressive reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. Figure from Warren et al., Nature Climate Change 2013.

We already knew that the rising temperatures and shifting rainfall patterns brought about by climate change was bad news for the world’s rare and endangered species, likely pushing many to extinction. A new study published in the journal Nature Climate Change now finds that even their more common and widespread relatives are in danger. An international team of researchers, lead by the UK’s Tyndall Center for Climate Change Research, looked at nearly 50,000 plant and animal species worldwide and compared how their distributions align with current climatic conditions as well as possible future conditions.

They found that more than half of plants (57%) and more than a third (34%) of vertebrate animals would lose the majority of their climatically suitable habitats in the absence of serious actions to reduce carbon pollution.

Reductions in suitable climatic ranges for such a large number of the world’s plants and animals would not only lead to considerable losses of many unique life forms, but would have far-reaching and likely devastating effects on the many ecological benefits that people derive from our natural ecosystems.

Although comparisons between current species ranges and future climates have been carried out before, there are a couple of things that distinguish this new study.

• Scale – this research looked at a huge number of species around the world, focusing on those that currently are widespread and abundant.
• Dispersal capacity – Rather than assume that species would be capable of keeping pace with rapid shifts in climate (as many past studies have), the researchers incorporated estimates of realistic dispersal capacity for different groups of plants and animals.
• Carbon reduction – the researchers also evaluated the degree to which common species would suffer range contractions under various scenarios for carbon reduction, in order to quantify the biodiversity benefits of climate mitigation.

Understanding the implications for biodiversity of varying levels of carbon in the atmosphere takes on particular significance in the wake of last week’s news from the Mauna Loa Observatory that atmospheric carbon dioxide levels have topped 400 parts per million for the first time in at least three million years.

Providing More Time to Adapt

Dealing with the underlying cause of climate change (climate mitigation), and addressing the impacts of climate change (climate adaptation) have often been viewed as separate approaches to addressing global warming, and some environmentalists have even considered a focus on adaptation as undercutting the urgency of reducing carbon emissions.  This study clearly demonstrates the tight and complementary relation between climate mitigation and adaptation efforts. These researchers found that early aggressive action on carbon reduction has the capacity to greatly reduce the projected impacts on common species—with losses reduced by 60% under the most stringent carbon reduction approaches. At the same time, reducing these pressures would have the effect of increasing the likely success of adaptation efforts, and lengthening the time—by up to 50 years—for society to put climate-smart conservation strategies into place.

Drawing on the Power of Networked Biological Data

This study was only possible thanks to an enormous investment over the past two decades to computerize and network together the world’s biological collections.  Natural history museums and botanical gardens around the world have for centuries served as biological archives, with their preserved specimens documenting the distribution and condition of the world’s biological diversity. In order to make this historical record more accessible and useful to society, these institutions have been investing in the laborious task of digitizing these collections and linking them online in something called the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF).  Indeed, the US node for this network—known as BISON—was just launched in April by the US Geological Survey. This global network now links together millions of plant and animal distribution records, and served as the primary source for the biological data on which this new and groundbreaking study of climate change was based.  It is truly an example of how better access to the historical record can shed new light on the future of biodiversity.

Wildlife in a Warming World

Although this new study focuses on how these changes are likely to play out over the next 70 years, impacts of climate change on our wildlife are already here.  National Wildlife Federation considers climate change to be the conservation issue of the twenty-first century, and recently issued a report—Wildlife in a Warming World—that details the many ways in which our wildlife already are being affected. In addition to advocating for meaningful action to reduce the carbon pollution driving global warming, NWF is working to identify ways to better safeguard our wildlife and their habitats in the face of climate change. There are many things that conservationists and natural resource managers can do now to help wildlife survive in the face of these threats, and our recently published Quick Guide to Climate Smart Conservation summarizes the findings of a broad collaboration of adaptation experts convened by NWF.

An Urgent Call to Action

While there is much that we can do to prepare for the impacts of climate change on people and wildlife, this new study makes clear that even with aggressive action – on both mitigation and adaptation—we stand to lose a substantial amount of our biological heritage. This has profound implications not only for the diversity of life on Earth, but for the very ecological life support systems, like water and food production, that humans rely on. The study underscores the urgency with which we need to achieve real and meaningful reductions in carbon emissions, if we wish to leave our children with a planet still capable of inspiring awe in our wildlife and wild places.

Speak Up for Polar Bear Cubs: Urge President Obama to start limiting carbon pollution that comes from coal fired power plants — our nation’s largest source of carbon pollution.

Cherry blossoms flowering on the grounds of the Washington Monument during President Obama’s Second Inauguration, January 21, 2013. NWF photo by Bruce Stein.

Climate scientists at NOAA recently announced that in the continental United States, 2012 was the hottest year since record-keeping began 118 years ago, blowing past the previous record by a full degree. The effect of these increasingly warm temperatures is already showing in our woods and meadows. Just last week scientists reported record early flowering times for dozens of spring wildflowers in the eastern United States. Using notes from famed naturalists Henry David Thoreau and Aldo Leopold, research teams documented that flowering is now occurring up to three weeks earlier than in Thoreau and Leopold’s time, 160 and 80 years ago respectively.

While an early spring may not sound too bad to winter-weary New Englanders, many plants and animals depend on the linked timing of other species to survive—for instance, the timely emergence of insects for birds to feed to their chicks, or the arrival of bees or hummingbirds to pollinate flowers. Accelerate or delay one side of the interaction and the other can suffer in response. This form of ecological mismatch is just one example of the impacts of climate change on species and ecosystems that were summarized in a recent report to the National Climate Assessment, on which I was a co-author.

As I stood on the grounds of the Washington Monument with thousands of others yesterday, I was thrilled to hear President Obama speak very directly about the need to finally confront the dangers climate change poses to America. “We will respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that failure to do so would betray our children and future generations.” He then noted that “some may still deny the overwhelming judgment of science, but none can avoid the devastating impact of raging fires, and crippling drought, and more powerful storms.” Indeed, the science is now clear; it is only the political science and our will to act that is in doubt.

Early this morning as I stepped outside to walk my dog, temperatures in Washington hovered around 19 degrees, a dramatic dip from the previous day’s relatively mild temperatures. Such cold days are now becoming a rarity in Washington, and I found myself savoring the bite of the winter air. I couldn’t help but think, though, about the now-frozen petals on the National Mall, and the young trees that, come spring time, would be without cherry blossoms. Washington’s cherry blossoms long have been a national treasure. It’s time we listened, as the president clearly did, to what they are telling us.

Speak up for wildlife, like polar bears, and support limits on carbon pollution from power plants!

Bahia Honda, a subtropical gem in the Florida Keys, harbors numerous rare plants and animals. Photo © Susan Stein.

Where’s the Native Wildlife?

Miami blue butterfly on Bahia Honda in 2003. This species was last seen on the island in January 2010. Photo: J. Glassberg.

The Miami blue once extended from the Dry Tortugas in the south up along the Florida coasts to about St. Petersburg and Daytona. Its decline resulted from a variety of factors, most notably loss of habitat. On Bahia Honda, however, one of the most significant factors in its recent demise has been a flourishing population of non-native iguanas. These introduced reptiles, which can grow to a yard long, have developed a taste for the young shoots of the gray nickerbean (Caesalpinia bonduc), the host plant for the Miami blue’s eggs and larvae. These ill-tempered and voracious lizards appear to have literally eaten the Miami blues into oblivion on this island.

Iguana basking in gray nickerbean, the host plant for the endangered Miami blue butterfly. Photo © Susan Stein.

And Everglades National Park, one of the nation’s crown jewels, is the epicenter of an invasion of Burmese python, a non-native constrictor snake that research now documents has almost completely wiped out this sensitive ecosystems rabbits, raccoons, deer, and other small mammals. Although the endangered Florida panther may be too large or cautious to be caught and killed directly by these constrictor snakes, by consuming much of the panther’s food source the snake will almost certainly lead to further declines for this endangered large cat.

Stemming the Invasive Tide

Burmese python have nearly wiped out small mammals in portions of Everglades National Park. Photo: by Bob DeGross, National Park Service.

Trying to control these pests once they have established themselves is difficult, costly, and often futile. A far better approach, ecologically and economically, is to keep them out in the first place. One obvious place to start is to better regulate the import of species known to pose a risk to U.S. ecosystems. Last year the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, under pressure from NWF and its partners, made a good start by banning the import of four species of large constrictor snakes that were deemed to present just such a risk.

Unfortunately, bowing to political pressure from a small but vocal lobby of reptile breeders, an additional five constrictor snakes that Fish and Wildlife considers to present an invasion risk, such as the reticulated python and green anaconda, were excluded from that import ban. National Wildlife Federation views the listing of these additional constrictors as “injurious species” under federal law to be a top priority in 2013.

The current system for assessing and limiting imports of invasive and potentially invasive species—designed before the days of lightening fast transcontinental shipping and dramatic expansion of the exotic pet trade—is too slow and unwieldy and badly in need to reform. Fortunately, with NWF support, bills introduced in the last Congress propose common sense reforms that would create a new screening system for evaluating the risk of invasion that species pose, and give the Fish and Wildlife Service greater flexibility and authority to make science-based decisions to prohibit or restrict trade in certain live animals. With the start of a new Congress, reintroduction and passage of bills such as Representative Slaughter’s (D-N.Y.) Invasive Fish and Wildlife Prevention Act is an imperative to better protect our nation from the onslaught of new harmful and costly invasions.

Packing up our campsite back on Bahia Honda in preparation for the long drive home is always bitter sweet. There’s next year’s visit to look forward to, sustained by memories of the snappers we caught this time, and paddles through the mangroves and over the clear waters. But the demise of the Miami blue butterfly on the island—one small but important strand of the key’s biological web—is emblematic of what we already have lost in this “American Paradise.”

How You Can Help

Donate today and help National Wildlife Federation continue to work for wildlife, including Miami blue butterflies and Florida panthers at risk from invasive species.

Just published in the April issue of the journal BioScience, the article Top 40 Priorities for Science to Inform U.S. Conservation and Management Policy, of which I am one of the co-authors, lays out some of the most pressing research questions in the fields of conservation and ecology. 

Understanding changes in land cover and climate will be key to managing wildfire. Photo by John McColgan, BLM.

Bluefin Tuna breed in only two places on earth—the Mediterranean Sea and the Gulf

Although images of oil-drenched pelicans and blackened marshes are fading from public consciousness, researchers are grappling with the long-term impacts of the BP oil disaster on the Gulf of Mexico ecosystem. One of the greatest concerns is the potential collapse of key links in the ecosystem’s food chain, and the ecological domino effect this could set off.

Those of us responding to the Gulf disaster are haunted by just such a collapse in Prince William Sound following the Exxon Valdez spill. The collapse of the herring fishery in Prince William Sound did not become fully apparent until four years after that spill. What then are the prospects for a similar jolt to the Gulf’s food chain, and how might we prevent such an event from happening?

This was the central question at a scientific symposium that just wrapped up in Sarasota Florida, sponsored by National Wildlife Federation, Mote Marine Lab, University of South Florida, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Bringing together a diverse collection of 40 scientists, resource managers, fisherman, and conservationists, the gathering considered:

• How the spill might affect the Gulf’s food web
• Which parts of the system might be at particular risk
• How we might detect such impacts
• How we can keep these ecological dominos from toppling.

Over two days, experts sifted through information about how fish and other marine creatures responded to, and may have been impacted by the more than 200 million gallons of oil that spewed in the Gulf and the 2 million gallons of chemical dispersants that were used to break the oil into smaller globules. One major conclusion is that despite the enormous economic and ecological importance of the Gulf, there is an embarrassing lack of reliable baseline information about this ecosystem.

What we do know, however, is that the timing of the spill coincided with spawning activity in many Gulf species, and the epicenter of the spill is an area where much of this reproduction typically takes place.

Atlantic blue fin tuna, for instance, among the most magnificent of large predatory fish, breed in only two places on earth—the Mediterranean Sea and the Gulf. Eggs of this already dangerously depleted species were deposited into the Gulf’s waters during the height of the spill. Tarpon, an important game fish were spawning during this period too. And although tarpon are not typically associated with the northern Gulf, according to experts from the University of Miami up to half of the larvae deposited along the west coast of Florida may have been carried northward towards the oil plumes emanating from the blown out well.

Unfortunately for blue fins, tarpon, and other fish spawning during this period, oil is particularly toxic to eggs and larvae.

Although much of our discussion centered around the fate of top predators such as tuna, sharks, and billfish, the group was perhaps even more concerned about possible impacts on smaller, more humble fishes that serve as prey.

Menhaden, for example, exist in vast quantities and serve as a critical link in the food chain for many commercially and recreationally important fish species. These small fish are also harvested in enormous quantities by people, primarily for use in animal feed.

Menhaden are a critical link in the gulf food chain

Should the spill cause a decline or possible collapse of important prey species like menhaden or mullet, the ecological and economic consequences could be catastrophic.

Another key lesson from the Exxon Valdez spill emerged during the symposium. Although the customary narrative suggests that herring populations unexpectedly collapsed four years after the spill, it turns out that there were warning signs only recognized in hindsight. Not only were these warning signs missed, but fisheries managers actually cranked-up harvest levels in the sound based on faulty assumptions about stock health. This intensified harvest exacerbated the spill-related declines and apparently contributed to the collapse.

Detecting early warning signs of possible food chain collapses in the Gulf will be essential for managers to ensure that recovery and restoration efforts of the Gulf ecosystem can be successful.

Symposium participants concluded that carrying out a rapid risk assessment to determine which components of the food chain might be most vulnerable is a priority research need. Such an assessment would enable targeted sampling and assessments to pick-up warning signals while there is still time to act. And heeding fisheries management mistakes made in Prince Williams Sound, symposium participants also urged that catch levels be managed cautiously over the next few years.

Realizing our vision of restoring the Gulf requires that we pay attention not just to what is immediately visible, but also to what is going on beneath the still teeming surface of the Gulf’s waters. Although it is difficult to forecast exactly what effect declines in one species may have on others, should the Gulf’s ecological dominos start to topple, the impact will affect not only fish and wildlife but people as well.

This is one game we can’t afford to play.

Logo for the 2010 Convention on Biological Diversity

The future of life on Earth is on the negotiating table in Nagoya, Japan as delegates from more than 190 countries grapple with carrying out the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).

Created at the Earth Summit in 1992, the Convention has set aggressive targets for cutting the rate of species extinctions and slowing habitat loss worldwide. Unfortunately, these 2010 targets not only have been missed, but the pace of biodiversity loss is getting worse. It is against this discouraging backdrop—as well as attempts in Nagoya to establish a new set of targets for 2020—that we must ask the question, “how much of a difference do our conservation efforts really make?”

A newly published global analysis, on which I am a co-author, demonstrates conclusively that the news would be even worse if not for conservation efforts already underway. “The Impact of Conservation on the Status of the World’s Vertebrates,” published today online by the prestigious journal Science, considers the fate of more than 25,000 species of mammals, birds, and amphibians worldwide. Assessing the conservation status of each of these species has been a gargantuan task, carried out by a veritable army of more than 3,000 scientists around the globe.

Although the term “big science” usually is applied to such endeavors as atom smashers and sequencing the human genome, the global scientific collaboration that underpins the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species qualifies to be included in that category. Reflecting the vastness of this effort, this newly published paper includes more than 150 co-authors.

Based on our latest assessments of the condition of the world’s vertebrates—that is, animals with backbones—nearly one-fifth are classified as threatened, ranging from 13% of birds to 41% of amphibians.

Understanding the current conservation status of these species tells only part of the story, though.  To determine whether things are getting better or worse we must also have a way of detecting changes over time. Over the past few years my colleagues in the IUCN Red List Program have developed a means for analyzing trends in these species assessments — referred to as the Red List Index — to understand how well or poorly these species are doing.  We found that from 1980 to 2008 an average of 52 species each year moved one Red List category closer to extinction.

Have conservation efforts made any measurable difference in slowing these rates?

This is a difficult question to measure directly, since oftentimes conservation actions are necessary just to maintain a species at its current condition, rather than recover it sufficiently for it to move to a less threatened Red List category.

The short answer is “yes, conservation efforts have helped and it could have been much worse.” Of 928 species that shifted in Red List threat categories, 68 (or 7%) showed an improvement in condition, with all but four of these directly due to conservation actions. By comparing the observed changes in the Red List Index with the trends expected without these conservation-dependent improvements, we can then conservatively measure the effect that conservation efforts have on slowing the global decline in these species groups.

Poison Dart Frog Sitting on a Leaf (Credit: Flickr/MoleSon)

The  bottom line is that conservation actions can and do have a demonstrable effect on slowing the rate of global biodiversity loss—basically making a bad situation less bad.

Unfortunately, there is still a huge mismatch between what is needed and what is available for biodiversity conservation, both in terms of the scale of actions and investments, and where these actions  are taking place.

As delegates to the Convention on Biological Diversity in Nagoya attempt to conclude their work, they can take heart that although the indicators of biodiversity health are still moving in the wrong direction, conservation actions and investments can and do make a real and measurable difference. To meet the scale of the challenge, and have a hope of making good on whatever new 2020 targets for reducing biodiversity decline are adopted, the nation’s of the world will need to dramatically ramp up our levels of investment and actions.