Species Threatened as Climate Crisis Pushes Mother Nature 'Out of Synch'

The warming of the Earth over the past several decades is throwing Mother Nature’s food chain out of whack and leaving many species struggling to survive, according to new research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The study offers the latest evidence that the climate crisis that human activity has contributed to has had far-reaching effects throughout the planet.

A paper by ecologists at the University of Ottawa examined 88 species on four continents, and more than 50 relationships between predator and pray as well as herbivores and the plants they eat, and found that food chain events are taking place earlier in the year than they have in the past, because of the warming climate.

“Most of the examples were about food,” Heather Kharouba, lead author of the paper, told the National Observer. “Is it available or is it not?”

In the study’s findings, Kharouba added, “everything is consistent with the fact it’s getting warmer…All the changes we see are exactly what we would predict with warmer temperatures and how we would expect biology to respond.”

“It demonstrates that many species interactions from around the world are in a state of rapid flux,” Boston University biology professor Richard Primack told the Associated Press. “Prior to this study, studies of changing species interactions focused on one place or one group of species.”

“Most of the examples were about food. Is it available or is it not?”—Heather Kharouba, University of Ottawa