Tropical and Mediterranean Regions Most Threatened by Loss of Biodiversity
Scientists have long known that the risk of extinction for animals and plants varied across the globe. Now new published evidence has found the first casualties are most likely to be in the tropics and the Mediterranean basin.
Influencing factors
The reasons for this fall into two broad categories. The human factor is that the tropics, currently seeing some of the world’s fastest growing populations, are likely to experience the largest increases in agricultural land at the expense of natural areas according to Ecology & Evolution. With attention and funding focused elsewhere, the region has also suffered from a degree of underreporting, so that we are now only awakening to the scale of the challenges there.
Climate change poses the other main challenge. Both regions historically have tended to experience limited seasonal variations in temperatures, thus the biodiversity is less resilient to extreme fluctuations.
Affecting Biodiversity
The team studied data on 47,044 species of animals, plants and fungi in 91 countries to conclude that 10-13% of species in the tropics will become extinct for every degree of temperature change. In both regions, many plants and animals are already at the limits of their temperature tolerance and the risks multiply, especially in the tropics, when one considers changing land use will eventually deprive biodiversity of the forest canopy needed to survive high temperatures.
Consequently, stemming the deforestation of these areas is seen as crucial to helping these endangered species to survive.