[Environment Report]:Wildlife Reacting to Climate Changes


This is the VOA Special English ENVIRONMENT REPORT.

American scientists say rising temperatures on Earth's surfaceare forcing animals and plants to move to cooler areas and makeother changes. Their studies found that warmer weather is causingmany kinds of wildlife to leave their native environments. They alsofound that such natural events as tree flowering and long-distancetravel by birds are now happening earlier in the year. Naturemagazine reported the findings.

The scientists say the result of these changes could beenvironmental damage and local losses of wildlife. They also warnthat some creatures could disappear completely.

Plants and animals have always had to react to changingenvironments. However, the climate is now changing faster than everbefore. Many scientists blame heat-trapping industrial gases for thewarmer weather.

Camille Parmesan (PAR-meh-zahn) is a biologist at the Universityof Texas at Austin. She organized one of the studies with economistGary Yohe (YO-ee) of Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut. They examined other studies that followed the movements of aboutone-thousand-seven-hundred kinds of wildlife over many years. Theyused mathematical programs to make sure that only the bestinformation was studied.

Their most detailed effort involved ninety-nine kinds of birds,insects and plants in North America and Europe. They found that theterritory where these plants and animals live has moved north by anaverage of six kilometers every ten years. In Europe, somebutterflies now live as much as one-hundred kilometers to the northbecause of changes linked to higher temperatures.

Professors Parmesan and Yohe used similar methods to examineone-hundred-seventy-two kinds of wildlife. They examined the timingof events in the spring, such as the appearance of flowers and thereproduction of animals. They found that these events happened anaverage of two days earlier than normal every ten years.

In the second study, scientists at Stanford University in PaloAlto, California, examined wildlife and climate information fromone-hundred-forty-three studies. They found that about eightypercent of the creatures studied had made changes because of warmerweather.

This VOA Special English ENVIRONMENT REPORT was written by GeorgeGrow.

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