Effects Of Anthropogenic Climate Change On Organisms

Discussion

Discuss about the Anthropological Climate Change and Effect on Organism.

Anthropogenic climate change is the greenhouse gas production by activity of human. According to Steen Skagen and Melcher (2016), in last decades, the human activity increases with the production of green increases. This affects the polar ice cores and becomes the main reason of climate change. However, the climate change affects the animal kingdom badly.  As a result, many of the species are endangered mainly the reptiles and amphibians. The response of the species towards the climate changes is not clear, which become a major challenge for the scientists.

The main aim of the assignment is to find out the effect of climate change on the focal species. During the climate watch, ten focal species are selected.

The assignment discusses about the focal species that is found during the climate Watch. The effect of climate change on that species is discussed. Moreover, the assignment discusses about limitation of the citizen science projects. The relevance to human society of the climate change studies is discussed. Result

Common name Save Time On Research and Writing Hire a Pro to Write You a 100% Plagiarism-Free Paper. Get My Paper	Location	Date	Time
Spur winged lapwing	WSU Hawkesbury campus near the building L9	03/24/2017	9.13 am
Woylies	WSU Hawkesbury campus near the building G6	03/24/2017	12.43 pm
Mt Lofty Spotted Quail thrush	WSU Hawkesbury campus near the building G5	03/25/2017	8.03 am
Short nosed sea snake	WSU Hawkesbury campus near the building L8	03/25/2017	11.35 am
Spotted tree frog	WSU Hawkesbury campus near the building L9	03/25/2017	4.25 pm
Southern corroborre frog	Sub Alpine region of South Wales	03/26/2017	9.17 am
Nangur spiny skink	South east Queensland	03/26/2017	13.56 pm
Sand tiger shark	Coastal area	03/26/2017	20.59 pm
Dinosaur ant	Hilly area of Australia	03/27/2017	10.45 am
Western swamp tortoise	Swan coastal plain	03/27/2017	14.26 pm

Table 1: Focal species sightings reported to Climate Watch

(Source: Allen and Bradley 2016; James and Abbott 2013)

The climate change has a significant on the ecosystem, including mammals, reptiles, amphibians and birds. Baker et al. (2016) mentioned that the mammals have particular climate adaptations like needs for sea ice, temperature and snow. The mammals cannot avoid effects of climate change. They have to face both the positive and negative effects of climate changes. In the climate watch, it is found that Woylies is affected badly due to the climate change. They become the rare marsupial mammal, which belong to genus Betteogia. They can breed all over the year if they find the favorable condition of breeding, which is changing with the time. Therefore, the breeding habit of woylies is reducing and the numbers of woylies are decreasing.

In comparison to mammals, the reptiles have the ability of climate change adaptation. However, many reptiles are very sensitive to the climate change (Chambers, Beaumont and Hudson 2014). The reason behind this is the ectothermy.  They have to maintain the ambient temperature of the environment for maintaining the crucial physiological processes. It is necessary to consider the location of the species, where they live. Due to the climate changes, the temperature of the locations of that species is not maintained. Therefore, they show the vulnerability towards the climate change and become endangered species. Short-nosed sea snake is one of the endangered species, which belongs to the Elapidae family. This type of snake is found in the coastal area of Western Australia. Some of the turtles need proper temperature like the snakes.  Western swamp tortoise is one of the reptiles that need particular temperature to sustain. The sex ratio of the reptiles is changing as well as the mammals’ sex ratio. It is necessary to save the reptiles and mammals for the wellbeing of the ecosystem. Hedlund et al. (2015) mentioned that the abolishment of mammals and reptiles affects the balance of the ecosystem. Therefore, it is necessary to take proper steps to conserve those endangered species.

Conclusion

Various factors contribute to vulnerability of the amphibians, which are affected by the climate change. They are the most threaten species among the all species. The reasons of the threatening are the habit loss, invasive diseases, overexploitation, chemical pollution and diseases due to the climate change. Both the terrestrial and aquatic lifestyle of the amphibians is affected (Dunn and Møller 2014). The temperature of the water is increases, which affects the breeding habit of the amphibians. The numbers of new amphibians are not increasing.  The amphibian species, which have less tolerance for the high temperature and moisture regime, are at the high risk. They cannot survive without water and the number of aquatic system is decreasing, which is the other reason of the abolishment of Spotted tree frog and Southern corroborre frog.

Another species that is affected by the climate change is the birds. It is found that the birds are laying eggs earlier than time. Therefore, in many cases, the young birds cannot survive and bird death occurs. Another thing that happens due to the climate change is that the migration time of birds is shifting. The temperature of the earth is increasing therefore, the birds face problems about the migration (Bock 2014). Most of the birds in the winter seasons in the cold places. Moreover, behavior of the birds is changing. The life cycle of the birds is changing, which is the main cause of the bird abolishment.

The human being needs to be careful, as the ecosystem is dependent on them and their activities (Allen and Bradley 2016). They need to control their activities for the wellbeing of others. Dunn and Møller (2014) mentioned that the climate change can affect the human beings as well as the other species and may cause of the destruction of the earth.

Citizen science is the science that deals with the developing concepts of science and lifestyle of citizens. However, the citizen science projects have various limitations. This needs the validity of volunteer generated data. Keatley, Chambers and Phillips (2013) mentioned that some of the volunteers might not have the suitability for volunteering. The volunteers may have proper training and knowledge about the citizen science projects. There are various risks to introduce the data of the citizen science projects in front of wrong persons, who may use this for unauthentic purpose. The volunteers may not monitor the protocols of the projects properly and therefore the risk increases (Quintero et al. 2014). The members of the citizen science projects may lie about the data and this may affect the result of the projects. The members may take wrong data and have lack of knowledge of data collection.  They may choose the complex data collection method and the risk increases with this. They can bias with the data and influence the boundaries of the projects.

References

Conclusion

Based on the above discussion, it can be concluded that the human needs to modify their habits for the wellbeing of the ecosystem. The use of chloro fluoro carbon (CFC) needs tobe reduced, which mainly affects the ecosystem. The endangered species needs to be  reserved so that the balance of the ecosystem can be maintained. The climate change has a significant on the ecosystem, including mammals, reptiles, amphibians and birds. The reasons of the threatening o life of species are the habit loss, invasive diseases, overexploitation, chemical pollution and diseases due to the climate change. It is necessary to take proper steps to conserve those endangered species. The sex ratio of the species is changing as well as the mammals’ sex ratio. People should be aware of their activity or it may harm their lifestyle as well as the other species. It can be expected that the climate Watch can help the endangered species to sustain that will help in maintaining the ecosystem.

References

Allen, J.M. and Bradley, B.A., 2016. Out of the weeds? Reduced plant invasion risk with climate change in the continental United States. Biological Conservation, 203, pp.306-312.

Baker, D.J., Hartley, A.J., Butchart, S. and Willis, S.G., 2016. Choice of baseline climate data impacts projected species’ responses to climate change. Global change biology. 3(2), pp.565

Bock, A., 2014. Detection of the impacts of climate change on plants from novel unexploited long-term datasets (Doctoral dissertation, München, Technische Universität München, Diss., 2014).

Chambers, L.E., Beaumont, L.J. and Hudson, I.L., 2014. Continental scale analysis of bird migration timing: influences of climate and life history traits—a generalized mixture model clustering and discriminant approach. International journal of biometeorology, 58(6), pp.1147-1162.

Dunn, P.O. and Møller, A.P., 2014. Changes in breeding phenology and population size of birds. Journal of Animal Ecology, 83(3), pp.729-739.

Hedlund, J.S., Jakobsson, S., Kullberg, C. and Fransson, T., 2015. Long?term phenological shifts and intra?specific differences in migratory change in the willow warbler Phylloscopus trochilus. Journal of Avian Biology, 46(1), pp.97-106.

James, A.R. and Abbott, K.C., 2013. Phenological and geographical shifts have interactive effects on migratory bird populations. The American Naturalist, 183(1), pp.40-53.

Keatley, M.R., Chambers, L.E. and Phillips, R., 2013. Australia and New Zealand. In Phenology: An Integrative Environmental Science (pp. 23-52). Springer Netherlands.

Quintero, I., González-Caro, S., Zalamea, P.C. and Cadena, C.D., 2014. Asynchrony of seasons: genetic differentiation associated with geographic variation in climatic seasonality and reproductive phenology. The American Naturalist, 184(3), pp.352-363.

Steen, V.A., Skagen, S.K. and Melcher, C.P., 2016. Implications of climate change for wetland-dependent birds in the Prairie Pothole Region. Wetlands, 36(2), pp.445-459.a