Welcome to the hood: A climate migration
Peregrine falcons perched atop towering skyscrapers. Coyotes caught on camera playing in a backyard. North American urban areas are awash in wildlife that faces growing pressures due to climate change, according to a study published in the scientific journal PLOS ONE.
The research, which looked at climate impacts on everything from mammals to insects in 60 of the most populous cities across the US and Canada, found that a warming world is moving many animals out of their historical geographic ranges and into new ones.
“Within a few years, the animals that you feed at your bird feeder might look very different,” said Alessandro Filazzola, the study’s lead author.
“We saw that a lot of cities are seeing large changes. Many species are moving in and many species are moving out.”
Among the broad trends identified in the study: Most vertebrates and amphibians will become less common across the cities studied. So too will the seemingly ubiquitous earthworm, though only one species of earthworm showed up in the data.
Even under the lowest warming scenario of the models studied, researchers found that the cities studied can expect at least 50 new species to move in and 40 to move out, though the turnover isn’t evenly distributed. Toronto, for example, is expected to lose between 40 and 195 of its estimated 888 species, but could gain between 159 and 360 new species by 2100 (where higher rates of warming are associated with both increased species loss and gains).
It’s not just wildlife in jeopardy: Atlanta, for example, is on track to lose 13.5% of tree species by the end of this century, the study notes.
Species turnover isn’t just an important indicator of climate impacts, Filazzola notes: As animals move from their ecological niche, they can create nuisances for humans. Already, Southern Californians have to deal with a growing mosquito problem.
Cities are also the site of frequent human-wildlife interactions, including both conflicts and delight. “With this great urban shift, many people will need to re-learn how to interact with the wildlife around them,” said Carly Ziter, an assistant professor of biology at Concordia University. Bloomberg