How can Conservation Efforts help species adapt to climate change? - In Review

Event / Environmental Issue

      Conservationists are worried because they believe that we are progressing to fast as a society in climate change and that species aren’t going to be able to progress as good as we will. To see how species are adapting scientists at the University of York have created different expansion techniques that are considered to be “stepping stones” which help expand these species over a large area and giving better quality of living to them. Their goal for these species is to have them expand over different areas where there isn’t as much urbanization making it easier for them to colonize and populate sustain the specie.

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Impact on Nature

        They are trying to preserve animal conservation because they cannot keep the amount of animals we have now at this rate. More habitat would be better in the conservation of animals but they aren’t for sure on where the best locations for these animals are, since most areas now are too urbanized. Conservationists are trying to create easier ways to help these species adapt quicker then they are designed too which can be very stressful to animals. 

Impact on People

       These conservations help the animals adapt so that if these species would go extinct it would cause many problems for our own lives. For humans to have a sustainable livelihood, these animal species are greatly needed. The reason each individual specie is needed because of the food chain. If one species is taken out of the cycle another will suffer then i could eventually alter our lives.

Key Terms of “How can Conservation Efforts help species adapt to climate change”?

Wildlife, conservation, colonization, species, stepping stones, urbanization, and land use.

How can Conservation Efforts help species adapt to climate change?

How can Conservation Efforts help species adapt to climate change?

From: Science Daily 

Published October 19, 2012 06:33 AM

       As the climate changes, conservationists are divided over the most effective way to preserve animal and plant diversity because they cannot simply preserve the status quo. Ensuring species can shift to track the climate to which they are suited is a complex problem, especially when there are competing demands on land use. A simple prediction is that more habitat would help species to shift, but it is not obvious what the best spatial locations for habitat would be. A new study led by scientists at the University of York says that well placed habitat "stepping stones" would lead to faster range expansion than the equivalent amount and quality of habitat tacked onto existing sites. The result applies to situations where a species will have to cross gaps of several times the distance one individual can normally traverse, i.e. to species whose habitat is fairly rare.

This will be relevant to numerous species that are already threatened for reasons other than climate change, and have very little habitat available. For example, the most important wildlife sites in Europe (called the Natura 2000 sites) make up 18 per cent of the land area, and the habitat for any one priority species will be much less than that.

The study, which is published in PLOS ONE, involved researchers from the Universities of York, Leeds and Aberdeen.

Lead author Dr Jenny Hodgson, of the Department of Biology at York, said: "Species in these fragmented habitats would need to make a series of "leapfrogging" moves over multiple generations to colonise new landscapes. Our research offers a way to identify existing chains of habitat patches that can enable this leapfrogging, but that may not seem obviously connected when looking at a map. When no suitable chains exist, the method can also help to plan new habitat stepping stones in the gaps that will be most difficult to cross."

http://www.enn.com/wildlife/article/45108