(CN) — In order to learn how to save animal species now, researchers studied old bones to find out why climate change killed certain species in the past.
According to the study published Thursday in Science, historical climate change happened when volcanic activity caused natural changes in greenhouse gases, killing countless species in the process. However, scientists did not know what traits enhanced a species' chances of survival. They also did not know how climate change's magnitude affected extinction risk.
Researchers from the University of Oxford and the University of Bristol sought answers to those questions. They analyzed over 485 million years’ worth of fossil records for marine invertebrates, such as sea urchins, snails and shellfish. This included more than 290,000 fossils covering upwards of 9,200 genera, which the researchers said they chose because marine invertebrates’ fossil records are rich and well-studied.
After studying the fossils, the researchers combined the trait information with climate simulation data to develop a model to see which traits either better protected a species from climate change, or put a species at greater danger of dying out.
The level of exposure to climate change was one trait.
A species that experienced temperature changes of 7 degrees Celsius or higher across geological stages faced significantly higher extinction vulnerability, the scientists found. This vulnerability extended to species that lived in climatic extremes such as polar regions, or species that lived in temperature ranges that fell below 15 degrees Celsius. Species with larger bodies stood a greater chance of avoiding extinction than their smaller-bodied counterparts.
First author of the study Cooper Malanoski said the team identified two traits as the most significant.
“Our study revealed that geographic range was the strongest predictor of extinction risk for marine invertebrates, but that the magnitude of climate change is also an important predictor of extinction, which has implications for biodiversity today in the face of climate change,” said Malanoski, a PhD student in the University of Oxford’s Department of Earth Sciences.
As for the species of today, human-driven climate change already puts many at risk of extinction. The researchers hope that their findings could help identify which animals are at greater risk and then to find ways to protect them. To do that, future work must focus on how climate change interacts with other potential extinction drivers, such as ocean acidification and anoxia. Otherwise, lead author Erin Saupe projected a grim future of modern species clinging to life.
“The evidence from the geological past suggests that global biodiversity faces a harrowing future, given projected climate change estimates,” said Saupe, a professor at the University of Oxford’s Department of Earth Sciences. “In particular, our model suggests that species with restricted thermal ranges of less than 15 degrees Celsius, living in the poles or tropics, are likely to be at the greatest risk of extinction. However, if the localized climate change is large enough, it could lead to significant extinction globally, potentially pushing us closer to a sixth mass extinction."
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