Global warming threatens existence of tropical species

September 29th, 2009 SYDNEY - A report has found that one in five species of Australian mammals are at risk of extinction. According to www.news.co.au, of the 388 species of mammals found naturally in Australia, 78 are listed as vulnerable, endangered or extinct in the wild.

September 11th, 2009 WASHINGTON - If a new research is anything to go by, then the Arctic as we know it may soon be a thing of the past, with global warming causing dramatic biological responses in the region. The research was led by Eric Post, associate professor of biology at Penn State University, along with a large, international team that carried out ecosystem-wide studies of the biological response to Arctic warming during the fourth International Polar Year, which ended in 2008.

September 10th, 2009 WASHINGTON - A new study by scientists has predicted the effect of global warming on spring flowers by the year 2080. Data, taken from records dating back to the late nineteenth century, has been used to demonstrate the impact of global warming and to predict the effect further warming will have on plant life by 2080.

September 4th, 2009 WASHINGTON - A new study has determined that species living in restricted environments such as the tropics may lack adequate variation in their genes and be unable to adapt to climate change. Adaptation is a physiological or behavioural change that makes an organism better suited to its environment, and more likely to survive and reproduce.

September 2nd, 2009 WASHINGTON - A new revision of the taxonomic relationships among one group of moths, the subfamily Dioptinae, sheds light on the diversity of tropical moth species and presents a unique story of parallel evolution. "These diurnal moths are a microcosm of butterfly evolution," said James Miller, author of the new Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History and a research associate in the Division of Invertebrate Zoology at the Museum.

July 29th, 2009 TORONTO - Botanists have identified a pair of genes which can help catalogue plants worldwide, using a technique known as DNA bar coding. "Bar coding provides an efficient means by which we can discover the many undescribed species that exist on earth," said Spencer Barrett, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Toronto (U-T), who led the study.

July 8th, 2009 WASHINGTON - A new research has suggested that Coralline algae in the Mediterranean Sea lost their tropical element between 5 and 7 million years ago. The international team of researchers studied the coralline algae fossils that lived on the last coral reefs of the Mediterranean Sea between 7.24 and 5.3 million years ago.

June 24th, 2009 WASHINGTON - A new study by a team of researchers has provided insights into how climate change might impact geographic ranges of species. The study, by researchers led by Jessica Hellmann, assistant professor of biological sciences at the University of Notre Dame, offers interesting insights into how species may, or may not, change their geographic range - the place where they live on earth - under climate change.

June 12th, 2009 WASHINGTON - An analysis has revealed that caribou and reindeer numbers worldwide have plunged almost 60 percent in the last three decades. The dramatic revelation came out of the first ever comprehensive census analysis of this iconic species carried out by biologists at the University of Alberta in Canada.

June 12th, 2009 WASHINGTON - A new research has indicated that an increase in temperature of only a couple of degrees may increase the dispersal of plants in Northern forests and the spread of plant species into forest clearings after felling or forest fires. The research, in the impact of global warming on seed and pollen dispersal, was led by University of Helsinki researcher Anna Kuparinen.

June 10th, 2009 WASHINGTON - A new study has indicated that African bird species could struggle to relocate to survive global warming because natural features of the landscape will limit where they can move to. As the global climate changes, some land bird species will be forced to move to new habitats, expanding and shifting their natural geographical 'range', in order to maintain suitable living conditions.

May 31st, 2009 LONDON - While many studies have predicted that global warming will cause widespread disruptions to ecosystems, a new study has found that a species of starfish may benefit from rising ocean temperatures and carbon dioxide concentrations. Previous studies have concluded that sea animals with calcified shells or skeletons, such as starfish, will suffer as carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels dissolves in the sea, making the water more acidic and destroying the calcium carbonate on which the creatures depend.

April 23rd, 2009 Ashley Judd urges Congress to fight global warmingWASHINGTON — Actress Ashley Judd and TV personality Jeff Corwin are urging Congress to spend $7 billion a year to help safeguard America's wildlife from the impact of global warming. Judd is a longtime environmental activist.

April 21st, 2009 WASHINGTON - Scientists at Harvard University, US, have found that tropical cyclones readily inject ice far into the stratosphere, possibly feeding global warming. The finding provides more evidence of the intertwining of severe weather and global warming by demonstrating a mechanism by which storms could drive climate change.

March 27th, 2009 WASHINGTON - A new study has determined that the recent warming trend in the Atlantic Ocean is largely due to reductions in airborne dust and volcanic emissions during the past 30 years. Since 1980, the tropical North Atlantic has been warming by an average of a quarter-degree Celsius (a half-degree Fahrenheit) per decade.