This average loss of biodiversity could reach 27% by 2100, according to the study published by Science Advances, which brings together European and Australian scientists.
The study focuses on cascading extinctions or co-extinctions. If one species disappears due to direct disturbance (primary extinction), another species can become the first predator, which will perish for lack of food.
If plants lose their pollinating insects because it is too hot, they too will succumb, as all species depend on the others in some way.
The authors point out that not including coextinctions hampers previous approaches to assess extinction trajectories over the next century.
So they developed a new tool to model the loss of linked species using the most powerful supercomputers in Europe to predict the linked fate of species likely to become extinct due to climate change and land use decline.
To preserve biodiversity, 44% of the world must be protected
According to Flinders University (Australia), the tool “represents a stark prediction of the future of global diversity and conclusively confirms that the Earth is in the midst of its sixth mass extinction event.”
The team created a huge virtual Earth network of interconnected species linked to who ate whom, then applied changes in climate and land use to the system to make predictions for the future.
Virtual species can colonize quite new regions as the climate changes, adapt to some degree to changing conditions, go extinct directly due to global changes, or fall victim to a series of extinctions.
“In effect, we have repopulated a virtual world from scratch and mapped the ultimate fate of thousands of species around the world to determine the likelihood of real landmarks,” said Giovanni Strona of the European Commission for the Joint Research Centre.
In this way, they could assess adaptation to different climate scenarios and correlate it with other factors to predict the coexistence pattern.
This study is unique in that it also accounts for secondary effects on biodiversity and predicts the effects of extinctions on local food webs as direct effects – in addition to primary extinctions.
“Children born today who live to be 70 years old could witness the extinction of thousands of plant and animal species in their lifetime, from the tiniest orchids and tiny insects to iconic animals such as elephants and koalas,” said Corey Bradshaw of Flinders University. . one of the signatories
Source: Ultimahora
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Karen Clayton is a seasoned journalist and author at The Nation Update, with a focus on world news and current events. She has a background in international relations, which gives her a deep understanding of the political, economic and social factors that shape the global landscape. She writes about a wide range of topics, including conflicts, political upheavals, and economic trends, as well as humanitarian crisis and human rights issues.
