Wednesday, May 25, 2016

What climate change can do


I've said to many climate deniers over the years I've been arguing about this issue that one of the main conservation concerns of climate change is the rate that temperatures are changing.

This article is a great example of why.  It's about spiny crayfish in Australia that have symbiotic worms (temnocephalans) living on them.  Great video, which is a little freaky.

Here's the problem (quoted from the article):

"Today, spiny mountain crayfish - a genus called Euastacus - live in dwindling patches of eastern Australia. In the warmer, northern part of their range they are restricted to lofty forest streams."

"Currently, three-quarters of the 37 Euastacus crayfish species are known to be endangered. The scientists found that if all those crayfish species were to die out, some 19 of the 33 temnocephalans would also disappear - starting with those in the north."

"They warn that such a sweeping coextinction is a genuine threat, particularly as modern-day climate change steepens the warming of Australia that has shaped and shrivelled the creatures' shared habitat over the millennia."

So there it is, adapt or die.  And the rapid pace of climate change makes more things die because they can't adapt.

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