Critical Information Needed in Fight to Save Wildlife

International scientists call for global effort to improve climate change predictions for biodiversity

With global temperatures rising, an international group of 22 top biologists is calling for a coordinated effort to gather important species information that is urgently needed to improve predictions for the impact of climate change on future biodiversity.

Current predictions fail to account for important biological factors like species competition and movement that can have a profound influence on whether a plant or animal survives changes to its environment, the scientists say in the September 9 issue of the journal Science.  While more sophisticated forecasting models exist, much of the detailed species information that is needed to improve predictions is lacking.

"Right now, we're treating a mouse the same way as an elephant or a fish or a tree.  Yet we know that those are all very different organisms and they are going to respond to their environment in different ways," says University of Connecticut Ecologist Mark Urban, the Science article's lead author.  "We need to pull on our boots, grab our binoculars, and go back into the field to gather more detailed information if we are going to make realistic predictions."

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