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4 - Global climate and extinction: evidence from the fossil record

from Section 2 - Adaptation, speciation and extinction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 May 2011

By
P. J. Mayhew
Edited by
Trevor R. Hodkinson ,
Michael B. Jones ,
Stephen Waldren  and
John A. N. Parnell
P. J. Mayhew
Affiliation:
University of York, UK
Trevor R. Hodkinson
Affiliation:
Trinity College, Dublin
Michael B. Jones
Affiliation:
Trinity College, Dublin
Stephen Waldren
Affiliation:
Trinity College, Dublin
John A. N. Parnell
Affiliation:
Trinity College, Dublin
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Summary

Abstract

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has acknowledged that climate change represents a tangible threat to species richness, based largely on the evidence from climate envelope modelling and the shifts in ranges of current species. However, because of uncertainty in the accuracy of extinction forecasts from climate envelope modelling, it would be useful to have an alternative source of information. The evidence from the fossil record is less widely discussed, but supports the view that a warmer global climate will increase extinction rates even without other associated human impacts such as habitat loss. Fine-scale studies show heterogeneity in results, but global-scale analyses demonstrate that extinction rates are generally elevated during greenhouse phases and that biodiversity is depressed. These trends are consistent with studies of extinction events that have implicated global warming as a consistent cause, triggered by carbon dioxide (CO2) release from large igneous province eruptions. They suggest that abiotic factors such as climate are a major influence on biodiversity through time, but relatively predictably so (unlike the paradigm of the Court Jester). They indicate that there are perils of a warm climate distinct from those of climate change alone; that global biodiversity loss through climate change will only be reversed on geologic timescales; and that any reduction in global warming will bring some benefit to global biodiversity.

Introduction

What will be the consequences of anthropogenic climate change during the current and next centuries? This question dominates much of the current research in the biological and earth sciences.

Type
Chapter
Information
Climate Change, Ecology and Systematics , pp. 99 - 121
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2011

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