Our ecosystems is being altered due to global warming and as a result, species are dying off.
Whales - Whales are notoriously difficult to count at sea, and no one is certain of the true figures. But the IWC's Scientific Committee is reassessing its official estimate of their numbers as a result of the new evidence that they are sharply declining.
No one knows why their numbers are crashing. But global warming is the main suspect because the krill on which they feed live at the edge of the sea ice, and so their abundance depends on its circumference. (Source)
Birds - Climate change may not be noticeable to all humans yet, but the behaviour of birds suggests the seasons have already changed. (Source).
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"We're already seeing biological communities respond very rapidly to climate warming," said Chris Thomas, a conservation biologist at the University of Leeds in England, and the study's lead author. "Climate change now represents at least as great a threat to the number of species surviving on Earth as habitat-destruction and modification," said Chris Thomas.
"The threat to life on Earth is not just a problem for the future. It is part of the here and now," wrote the authors of Pounds and Puschendorf.
Animals are "just reacting to what's going on out there," Terry Root, an environmental science and policy professor at Stanford University, says. "And if their behavior is very similar to what we expect with what's going on with global warming -- if they're shifting and they're moving, if they're changing their breeding time by 5 days in 10 years -- we can use that information to support what the thermometers are also showing."
"The thing that is very, very different from prehistoric times is that there are now K-Mart parking lots these species have to cross as they try to move north to get away from the heat down south," Root said.
"Some species that are adapted to a wide array of environments--globally common, or what we call weedy or urban species--will be most likely to persist," said Parmesan, associate professor of integrative biology. "Rare species that live in fragile or extreme habitats are already being affected, and we expect that to continue."
"Global warming is a serious threat to biodiversity," said Jay Malcolm, a forestry professor at the University of Toronto. "As climates warm, more southerly species will begin appearing further north, and species that occur at lower altitudes will start showing up at higher altitudes … species will find themselves in habitats where they don't belong."
