Species Can't Cope With Pace Of Warming

Most plants and animals cannot adapt at the rate the climate is changing, scientists have said. A study of more than 250 species found their ability to change their “climate niche”, the conditions under which they can survive, will be vastly outpaced by future changes in rainfall and temperature. Amphibians, reptiles and plants are particularly vulnerable, according to US researchers, and tropical species are at higher risk than those from temperate zones. Ecologists analyzed how quickly species had changed their niches over time, and how these rates compared with that of global warming. Rates of change in climatic niches were much slower than rates of projected climate change, by more than 200,000 fold for temperature on average, they said.