"Tropical species in Brazil or Kenya will indeed be much more sensitive to small temperature shifts than their temperate counterparts in places like England and Saskatchewan," adds biologist Robert Pringle of Stanford University's Center for Conservation Biology. This worrying finding "applies to all organisms that can't regulate their own body temperatures metabolically, which is the majority of species on Earth."
Still, cold-blooded tropical animals have survived climate changes in the past and may be able to once again adapt, acclimate, migrate or even change their behaviors. For example, beetles might burrow into the ground to stay cool during the hottest parts of the tropical day. And insects benefit from reproducing quickly, which could allow them to adapt more quickly than their slower-breeding lizard counterparts, who are also cold-blooded.
"We simply can't quantify right now how useful those strategies are going to be, especially in the context of this climate change," Deutsch says. "This change is extremely rapid compared to changes that have occurred in the geological past." Nor is it clear how other, less well understood climate changes, such as more or less rainfall, could affect insects.
And in more temperate regions, bugs could even benefit: As the pine beetles eating their way through the vast boreal forests of western North America prove, changes in climatic patterns can help insect pests by allowing them to survive through the winter. Pine beetles aside, it is in humankind's interest that certain beneficial insect species—what Deutsch calls the "unsung heroes in ecosystems"—survive, although some may not.
There are just too many factors to predict all the effects with any certainty, although it is clear that there will be some winners and some losers. "Direct impact of warming on physiology is a fundamental and direct consequence of warming, but it's really only one foundation stone for the response of the ecosystem," Deutsch says. "That is going to be vastly more complex."
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Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI love This Article
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe first sentence in the last paragraph say it all. None of this can be predicted with certainty. I guess a little thing called "evolution" might have to occur, just as it has throughout history during climatic changes on the planet. This is speculation and scare tactics.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisScared of what? Insects are some of the fastest evolving lifeforms on the planet. It's not like some medicinal resource is disappearing or something. The article hasn't really established why we should be concerned about an insect barely anyone knows about, much less motivating them to to take some kind of action, whatever that may be.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThermal Maximum,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJurassic Period,
Dragonflies the size of Crows, ? Any of this ring a bell?
You know the BBC, Washington Post, Time, Etc. they stopped putting comment boxes next to B.S. stories like this.
So no one can throw reality back in their faces.
Reality is in the fossil record -Mini Ice ages- (we are do for one)- Major Ice Ages and TOTAL GLOBAL ICING EVENTS!
Yes at least 2 times in the history of the world it has been entirely engulfed in ICE.
So you better get ready for these types of events that are proven to reoccur.
And when the climate does change there aint a G.D. thing Al Gore or the libs can do or say to change it.
Absolutely ridiculous to say that the current climate is optimum. Climate has been constantly changing for billions of years - we sure are lucky to be experiencing the optimum climate right now. It makes you wonder how life could have existed all this time in non-optimum climate?
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