Climate Change and Habitat Conversion Combine to Homogenize Nature

Orange-chinned parakeets eat mangoes
 from a farmer’s tree in Costa Rica. It can
thrive in drier habitats.

Climate change and habitat conversion to agriculture are working together to homogenize nature, indicates a study in the journal Global Change Biology led by the University of California, Davis.

In other words, the more things change, the more they are the same.

While the individual impacts of climate change and habitat conversion on wildlife are well-recognized, little is known about how species respond to both stressors at once.

In northwest Costa Rica, the study’s authors surveyed birds and plants at 120 sites that included rainforests, dry forests and farmland to determine how habitat conversion and climate-change-induced droughts affect tropical wildlife. They found that different bird species thrive in drier versus wetter areas of forests. In farmlands however, birds associated with dry sites were found everywhere, even in the wettest sites.

Read the Science and Technology Research News story - “Climate Change and Habitat Conversion Combine to Homogenize Nature.”

Changing climate has stalled Australian wheat yields: study

Fields of gold: Australia’s wheat industry
contributes more than A$5 billion to the
economy each year. Wheat image from www.shutterstock.com

Australia’s wheat yields more than trebled during the first 90 years of the 20th century but have stalled since 1990. In research published today in Global Change Biology, we show that rising temperatures and reduced rainfall, in line with global climate change, are responsible for the shortfall.

This is a major concern for wheat farmers, the Australian economy and global food security as the climate continues to change. The wheat industry is typically worth more than A$5 billion per year – Australia’s most valuable crop. Globally, food production needs to increase by at least 60% by 2050, and Australia is one of the world’s biggest wheat exporters.

There is some good news, though. So far, despite poorer conditions for growing wheat, farmers have managed to improve farming practices and at least stabilise yields. The question is how long they can continue to do so.

Read the latest CSIRO blog - “Changing climate has stalled Australian wheat yields: study.”