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Climate change is transforming the world, impacting different animals differently and leading to some animals struggling to survive while others find ways to overcome the resulting challenges. The phenomenon is increasingly referred to as “winners and losers under climate change.” According to a 2022 study published in the journal Science Advances, led by ecologist Giovanni Strona, under an intermediate emissions scenario, the world is set to lose almost 20% of vertebrate biodiversity by the end of the century, while under a worst-case warming scenario, the loss rises to almost 30%.
The threats to Earth’s biodiversity from climate change and habitat destruction are well documented, with the World Wildlife Fund’s (WWF) 2022 Living Planet Report describing a 69% decline in the relative abundance of monitored species since 1970 and 1 million species now facing extinction due to these twin threats. Climate change contributes to extinction risks in various ways, including inducing extreme weather events, raising temperatures beyond a species’ survival threshold, reducing rainfall, and shrinking habitats. Strona’s research also showed that climate change can have indirect effects that can ripple through ecosystems, causing a domino effect known as co-extinction, which will drive the bulk of terrestrial vertebrate species diversity declines.
It is difficult to pinpoint which animals will do better than others as the world warms due to the huge complexity of animal relationships within natural ecosystems and the uncertainty over how extreme climate change will get. However, Strona’s research found that larger species and species at high trophic levels will be more adversely affected. Meanwhile, animals with lower positions in the food chain, such as insects or rodents, may fare better. Faster breeding may benefit species in a changing climate because they are more adaptable to changing habitats, while species with more niche diets, such as pandas and koalas, may be at increased risk. The ability to migrate and adapt to different habitats can also insure animals against an uncertain future, but many creatures that can only survive in specific environments, such as coral reefs, are at greater risk.