Study Finds Animals That Will Be On 'Noah's Ark' Against Climate Change

Scientists have identified the species of animals that are likely to survive the tough conditions brought by climate change and also made a list of the species whose chances of survival are slim. In other words, they have found those that will make it to the metaphorical Noah's ark in time.

Climate change is an ongoing crisis and will only become worse as time passes. This begs the question – what will be the fate of our planet's ecosystem?

"That is the big question and the background for our study," said biologist John Jackson.

Findings of the study conducted by Jackson and fellow biologists, Christie Le Coeur from the University of Oslo and Owen Jones from the University of Denmark, were published in the journal eLife.

The study found that animals such as the African elephant, Siberian tiger, chimpanzee, greater horseshoe bat, llama, vicuña, white rhinoceros, grizzly bear, American bison, klipspringer, and Schreibers's bat were less affected by extreme weather.

On the other hand, animals like the Azara's grass mouse, olive grass mouse, elegant fat-tailed mouse opossum, Canadian lemming, Tundra vole, Arctic fox, stoat, common shrew, woylie, and arctic ground squirrel were more affected by extreme weather in the study.

The scientists collected an average of 10 to 35 years of data on population changes for each of 157 mammalian species in the world. They also studied the weather and climate data during the same time period.

Analysis of all the different data and comparing the results shed light on how the populations of different animal species have withstood times of extreme weather. The scientists were able to answer questions regarding the increase or decrease in population, and how the number of offspring shifted due to the changing climate.

"We can see a clear pattern: Animals that live a long time and have few offspring are less vulnerable when extreme weather hits than animals that live for a short time and have many offspring. Examples are llamas, long-lived bats and elephants versus mice, possums, and rare marsupials such as the woylie," said Jones.

However, when assessing the species' susceptibility to extinction, there are other factors to be considered beyond just their ability to withstand climate change.

"Habitat destruction, poaching, pollution, and invasive species are factors that threaten many animal species – in many cases even more than climate change," Jackson explained.

This study not only gives a peek into how these 157 mammal species react to climate change right now, but also adds to a better general understanding of how Earth's different animals will react to ongoing climate change.

"We expect climate change to bring more extreme weather in the future. Animals will need to cope with this extreme weather as they always have. So, our analysis helps predict how different animal species might respond to future climate change based on their general characteristics – even if we have limited data on their populations," Jones said.