From the University of York news that warming increases biodiversity. Since that’s a buzzword in the biology protectors circle, you’d think they’d be happy about this. Nope.
Research reveals contrasting consequences of a warmer Earth
A new study, by scientists from the Universities of York, Glasgow and Leeds, involving analysis of fossil and geological records going back 540 million years, suggests that biodiversity on Earth generally increases as the planet warms.
But the research says that the increase in biodiversity depends on the evolution of new species over millions of years, and is normally accompanied by extinctions of existing species.
The researchers suggest that present trends of increasing temperature are unlikely to boost global biodiversity in the short term because of the long timescales necessary for new forms to evolve. Instead, the speed of current change is expected to cause diversity loss. The study which is published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) says that while warm periods in the geological past experienced increased extinctions, they also promoted the origination of new species, increasing overall biodiversity.
The new research is a refinement of an earlier study that analysed biodiversity over the same time interval, but with a less sophisticated data set, and concluded that a warming climate led to drops in overall diversity. Using the improved data that are now available, the researchers re-examined patterns of marine invertebrate biodiversity over the last 540 million years.
Lead author, Dr Peter Mayhew, of the Department of Biology at York, said: “The improved data give us a more secure picture of the impact of warmer temperatures on marine biodiversity and they show that, as before, there is more extinction and origination in warm geological periods. But, overall, warm climates seem to boost biodiversity in the very long run, rather than reducing it.”
Dr Alistair McGowan, of the School of Geographical and Earth Sciences at the University of Glasgow said: “The previous findings always seemed paradoxical. Ecological studies show that species richness consistently increases towards the Equator, where it is warm, yet the relationship between biodiversity and temperature through time appeared to be the opposite. Our new results reverse these conclusions and bring them into line with the ecological pattern.”
Professor Tim Benton, of the Faculty of Biological Sciences at the University of Leeds, added: “Science progresses by constantly re-examining conclusions in the light of better data. Our results seem to show that temperature improves biodiversity through time as well as across space. However, they do not suggest that current global warming is good for existing species. Increases in global diversity take millions of years, and in the meantime we expect extinctions to occur.”
It is worth noting that species extinction is nothing new.
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I knew Alastair McGowan was a comedian but I never realised he had a PhD.
Gosh, my last post was terrible. Looks like I painted three black spots and expect everyone to see that it is a Polar Bear 🙁
My main point is that the story of life is so complicated that even the experts barely have a clue. Many of the mathematical tools needed to describe thing didn’t even exist 20 years ago. … Dang looks like my meeting isn’t going to be canceled after all …
I predict the global warmists will go the way of the dodo’s because: They are dodo’s.
Let me get this straight. Warming increases biodiversity except because the consequences in the short term might be slightly negative we shouldn’t change. Don’t these people argue that warming is bad because in the short term the consequences might be positive but a hundred years from now they will be negative so we should stop the warming? It’s just hard to keep straight when we should be thinking long term and when not.
The problem I’ve had with the extinction argument is that we do not know really how many species there are, how fast new species are being created or how fast species are becoming extinct. We don’t know if the net is positive negative, what the overall impact of global warming or 100s of other natural phenomenon might have on biodiversity. The goal of understanding all this, like understanding climate, is desirable but it’s just too early in these fields to make any predictions about anything. So like climate predictions all these statements are groundless. We don’t know nearly enough to make any verifiable statements.
Stephen Rasey says:
September 4, 2012 at 8:18 am
“In a steady-state climate, why should biodiversity increase? Where as in a changing climate ecological niches develop where there were none. Existing niches by necessity get smaller.”
Because of coevolution. New lifeforms create new niches by virtue of their existence. For instance, a rat is a biological niche for a flea. This way, life has become ever more diverse and evolution quicker.
Anybody seen the original article? I cannot find it on PNAS.
“Instead, the speed of current change is expected to cause diversity loss.”
Really? Darwin pointed out that the same alpine plants seem to occur on mountain tops around the world, despite it being unlikely that they could have migrated across the warm valleys and other terrain. He suspected that during the glacial periods, those warm valleys were comfortably cool for these alpine species and they spread widely until the warm-loving species returned after the glacial retreat. The glacial retreat was quite rapid, and the biological diversity certainly increased in those valleys after the warming.
As for diversity increasing due to new species arising over millions of years — consider the many forms of the domestic dog, chicken, and pigeon. Those have only been changing for a short time, and are rather varied. Those may not have created new species yet, but is there a reason to assume that similarly rapid changes could not also cause quite a bit of diversity in the wild?
“Instead, the speed of current change is expected to cause diversity loss.”
Especially because the current speed of change is zero. (For the last 10 or 15 years)
Stephen Rasey says:
September 4, 2012 at 8:18 am
“In a steady-state climate, why should biodiversity increase? Where as in a changing climate ecological niches develop where there were none. Existing niches by necessity get smaller.”
Nothing is that steady. The equivalent of weather happens in a steady-state climate. A river delta keeps expanding and subsiding, creating change. River bends form oxbows and straighten, changing the local environment between forest, lake, and marsh. Hills erode down. Forests burn and grow. Ducks bring snails and seeds to new places. Caves form or are destroyed. Flying critters are blown hundreds of miles from where they usually are.
So, let’s take them at their word.
Rapid change = extinction.
Did anyone notice that they failed to quantify “rapid change”?
If we accept the highly adjusted work of GISS and HadCrut we have a rate of change of about 1/100 of a degree per year. Is that rapid? Is that rapid enough to cause mass extintions? Oh, they’re worried about FUTURE rapid change, not CURRENT rapid change. They MUST be talking about FUTURE rate of change because we’ve had the CURRENT rate of change in place now for about 400 years (since the LIA). So it must be an increase in the FUTURE rate of change that they are talking about, because we haven’t seen any mass extinctions over the last 400 years.
Except….ooops…. CO2’s effects are logarithmic. So, current contributions would have to increase exponentially just to maintain the CURRENT rate of change, let alone an INCREASED rate of change.
+/- 1,200 species fully extinct since1600 A.D. (http://www.iucnredlist.org/.)
The assumption that speciation occurs over “millions of years” has been rejected by mainstream evolutionary theory for decades now. The dominant model (which is supported by the fossil record) is ‘punctuated equilibrium’- that is, species remain largely stable for long periods then rapidly respond to some probably-external event. True, the fossil record doesn’t show responses in single years or even centuries – the record is simply not that discrete – but neither does the fossil record preclude it. And a number of other lines of evidence support the potential for rapid speciation.
I am not so sure that adaptation, especially in regards to temperatures or rapid temperature changes, really needs to take a long time.
Most all of us ‘transplants’ that have moved from a cool Pacific Northwest to a hot and humind Southeast can attest to moving between somewhat radical extremes. The first couple years we really have a hard time adjusting to the oppressive summer heat and humidity of a Southeast summer…you just want to run from air conditioned car to house to store to get out of the heat. But with passing years, the sheer avoidance of the heat seems to slowly disappear and after a decade or so we can easily stand outside chatting with neighbors around a hot barbeque without feeling the overwhelming urge to run inside the house and get yet another cool shower.
I can’t say if it is really a physiological change that allows our bodies to sweat more, or the cappilaries to change dilation responses or if it is more psychological. But the effect is real for almost all who remain here. The body/mind seems to adapt to the conditions after a few years.
Can short-lived creatures adapt or pass the adaptive genes to the next generation? Not sure. But are there really any studies that show that the vast majority of animals or crops could not manage to adapt to an ‘abrupt’ temperature rise of 1.5 degrees a century? I know there are lots of outside cats and dogs that live from Maine to Georgia. I can grow the same fescue varieties in Oregon as I can in North Carolina. Is it really so impossible for living things to adapt to slight decadal changes?
Jim, too.
Humind=humid
cappilaries=capillaries
…
You get the idea…
Jim, too.
So they produced a paper that concluded “OMG Warming Leads To Lower Biodiversity!”, and when real biologists pointed out that it was obviously wrong (and pretty dumb) they produced a 2nd paper that concludes “Warming leads to greater biodiversity but OMG First Mass Extinctions Happen, IWTWT.”
Now we just have to wait for the real biologists to point out that this is also obviously wrong (and almost as dumb) and that’s not how evolution works. Or they can just read the posts in this thread.
I for one can’t wait for their 3rd paper, which will conclude “Warming leads to greater biodiverity by species evolving to adapt, BUT THEN…OMG MASS EXTINCTION IWTWT WE’RE ALL DOOMED THERMAGEDION!!!1!
To gringojay:
“+/- 1,200 species fully extinct since1600 A.D….”
Out of how many? And virtually all of those extinctions were caused by hunting. It is axiomatic that a man with a rifle is the most efficient predator.
To date, I know of no confirmed instance of a species going extinct due to AGW. Can you provide one?
@AnonyMoose Sept. 4, 2012 at 10:39 am
Nothing is that steady.
I mentioned a “Steady-state climate” more as a thought experiment. “Steady-state” ought to have the least biodiversity compared to changing climates. I also believe that some CAGW proponents believe in some ideal steady-state climate in the very recent past and any deviation from that is, in their mind, toward some worse or less desirable state.
Yes, of course, weather and changing of seasons stress an individual’s survival far more than any expected climate change. From the AGW alarm, you would think annual mass migrations were an unobserved behavior in the biosphere.
@DirkH says: Sept. 4, 2012 at 9:58 am
Because of Coevolution. New lifeforms create new niches by virtue of their existence.
Well said. Very astute. The dog, the cockroach, the bed-bug, and the staphylococcus are 4 of limitless examples.
We see significant and quick changes in temperature every 100K years (or less). Since most species around right now have survived these glaciation/melting cycles it would appear to me this conjecture has already been falsified.
I doubt that recent or near future warming has caused or will cause a detectable increase in extinctions, but if it does come down to a choice between warmer winters and the Crawley’s Dung Beetle, I’ll go with the warmer winters.
Hi Chris R.,
I personally doubt any extinction was from AGW, despite some being a consequence of humans.
Rate of extinction presented to the general public in last decades has been way off base – one canard was 100 daily.
Warming is very very good for bad things……like mosquitoes, ticks, sharks, and viruses
and warming is very very bad for pretty things…..like birds, butterflies, and posies
It’s a bit like the story of the disappearing MWP/LIA. They have retreated from utterly disprovable silliness (warming is bad for biodiversity) to just fudging silliness (well, OK, but it’s still bad because …).
Pathetic.
Weather Willy here with tomorrow’s forecast. The low will be 15.00 C and the high 25.00 C.
Now for the long range forecast. We’re expecting that one year from now the next day’s forecast will be 15.01 C for a low and 25.01 C for a high.
EVERYONE PANIC!
SPECIES EXTINCTION IS UPON US!
gringojay says:
“+/- 1,200 species fully extinct since1600 A.D. (http://www.iucnredlist.org/.)”
Interestingly, that site only lists 801 species as having gone extinct (and some of them were listed in the 1500s). What is your basis for the adjustment?
Also interestingly, that site lists reasons for extinction where known. Unsurprisingly, the vast majority have no reason listed. (69 of the first 100 in their list.) Of the ones where an extinction reason WAS listed:
10 – habitat destruction (strip mining, lake draining, urbanization, conversion to agricultural land)
16 – introduction of invasive species (primarily as predators but a few cases of out-competing)
15 – overhunting/overfishing (which arguably is a flavor of invasive species with man as the predator)
Note: Does not total 100 because some had multiple reasons listed.
Note 2: Many of the 69 with no reason listed showed that the species was local to the Hawaiian islands. Absent a more rigorous study, it is impossible to know for sure but my strong suspicion is that invasive species would be implicated in the majority.
That site also lists estimated dates of extinction – or at least last confirmed sightings.
1500s – 6
1600-49 – 1
1650-99 – 3
1700-49 – 2
1750-99 – 4
1800-49 – 3
1850-99 – 7
1900-49 – 5
1950-99 – 8
2000+ – 0
no date estimated – 61
So, yes, there is an increase in the rate of extinction. Looking at the pattern, though, the largest die-off dates to the Age of Exploration and correlates with the invasive species and over-hunting reasons. The 20th century extinctions correlate to habitat destruction.