Climate change can have direct impacts on amphibians and reptiles for example through heat and droughts, or affect them indirectly through changes in vegetation or the availability of food. The study by Maiken Winter and colleagues shows that climate change has a negative effect on so called cold-blooded animals in more than half of the cases analyzed in the reviewed articles. That can mean populations decline or the distribution ranges shrink or change so much that the species has to move altogether.
For a small part of the animals climate change can be positive – their distribution regions grow, eggs and larvae develop faster. But because the most species live in the tropics, the few positive effects cannot outweigh the negative ones: tropic regions in South America, Africa and Asia are particularly vulnerable for climate change. A total of 195 amphibian and 118 reptilian species from around the world were examined in the study; this is only a fraction of all known amphibians and reptiles, but it gives an initial overview of the impact of human-caused global warming on these vulnerable animals.
Article:
Weblink to the article: http://rsos.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/3/9/160158
