Life - "less" Land

We have seen that extinction is most likely a possibility that could be a reality as a consequence of climate change. In this blog, we’ll focus on the life of the species on land in face of climate change.

Credits: Phil harding

All the plants, animals and other organisms across the world are at the risk of extinction due to many possible reasons and one of them is climate change, not only that but it is the biggest threat to the survival of species including us. Scientists predict that the world is currently going under the starting phases of sixth mass extinction as mentioned in one of my previous blogs.

These species can try to save themselves in three following ways:

1. Flexibility to adapt

2. Migration

3. Evolution

Let's get into details of each one of them.

1. Flexibility to adapt:

As you might have learned in your biology classes, animals adapt accordingly to their respective environments. These can relate to behaviour, body parts or things happening within the body. Some of those adaptations include:

• Moving into shade or panting to cool down

• Animals carrying their babies away from fires

• Repairing nests after storms

• Being able to regulate fluids and remove excess salt from inside a plant

All these adaptations help for the species in their survival, but its the rate at which they need to adapt. As mentioned in the previous blog, salty seawater leads to dehydration of plants but the ones that quickly adapt to it would have greater chances of survival!

2. Migration:

It is expected that by 2050, 5-20% of our land will be home to completely different types of ecosystems. Climate change affects the rainfall and temperature patterns of a given region. Due to rise in the global temperatures, species have started to migrate towards the poles at an average of about 17 km per decade.

This too doesn't seem to end here, the species moving towards the poles have some barriers to overcome like the intervention of oceans, human farmlands, roads and much more...... So even if they are able to move fast enough to the poles, they would not be able to migrate for suitable environments!

Migrating in time (Time travel indeed!):

Have you noticed that the springs, summers, winters or monsoons have started to come-up earlier than usual? For instance, the spring is arriving 2.3 to 5.1 days earlier than it used to a few decades ago. This indeed leads to the changes in the nesting, breeding and migrating patterns of species. All this leads to the depreciation of the number of animals of particular species.

3. Evolution:

Now let's get into the long term cycles of adaptation - Evolution. Over longer periods of time, changes in the DNA of organisms is the reality we see today. Evolving according to the environment may include changes in shape, colour and higher tolerances to stresses.Some species might also have biological constraints slowing down their process of evolution.

So, this evolution depends on the life time of the individual species, number of offsprings per season (transferring the useful genes to the next generations) and having slow rates of genetic changes.

Rate of adaptation:

There have been the times in the past where climate change have taken place "naturally". So this is just a natural cycle that is happening right now - but the rate at which it has been taking place is the matter of concern for climate scientists as well as environmental conservationists.

The species can adapt to the changes in the climate but it takes time for them too! The species need to move 420 meters per year to adapt to the changing climatic conditions - 10x the distance that the species on the planet have been covering since the end of last ice age. All this is speeding up due to the greenhouse effect taking place due to the emissions from our vehicles, industries and in all the transport that is being led by us just for us!

At the end, I would like to show you a quote that relates to the above dvelopment taking place at the cost of our species and ecosystems that have been providing us essential things for our survival without taking anything in return!

Credits: Public Goods