<div style="text-align: justify; "><span style="font-size: 1rem;"><b>Climate change and habitat degradation will cause extinctions that cascade through communities of animals and plants and drive dramatic biodiversity loss, according to new research published on Friday.</b></span><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; ">The study, in the journal Science Advances, found that chain-reaction extinctions are unavoidable and predicted Earth's ecosystems will see average biodiversity loss of between six and 10 percent by 2050, depending on different carbon emissions scenarios.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">By 2100, losses of animals and plants could rise to as much as 27 percent, they found in their research that used virtual Earths to map out thousands of food webs.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The authors said their modelling suggested that the biggest changes will come before mid-century, predicting "the bleakest time for natural communities might be imminent and that the next few decades will be decisive for the future of global biodiversity".</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">With life on Earth under threat from human destruction, overexploitation and pollution, scientists have warned that a million species are facing extinction in what many fear heralds the planet's sixth mass extinction event.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Climate change is expected to dramatically accelerate the losses, with impacts of warming ranging from the effects of extreme weather, to changes in behaviour and habitat.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">But authors of the new study said previous modelling has not included estimates for co-extinctions, based on the "cascading effect" of losses on interdependent species.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The researchers in Australia and Europe built hundreds of virtual Earths each populated with more than 33,000 vertebrate species in thousands of food webs across the planet -- "massive computer latticeworks of 'who eats whom'," said co-author Corey Bradshaw, a professor at Flinders University.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">They then simulated different climate change scenarios and projections of habitat degradation -- like deforestation -- to predict local biodiversity loss, the proportion of animals lost in a given area.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">- 'Life support' -</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The virtual worlds allowed researchers to watch as species moved around and adapted to new environmental conditions and the implications of individual extinctions across food webs.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">They found that climate change would be responsible for the greatest proportion of extinction events.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"If you look out your window in 87 years, on average you'll see nearly 30 percent fewer animal species than you do today based on the business-as-usual climate scenario," Bradshaw told AFP.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The study found the greatest threat was in places with the greatest biodiversity -- 36 highly-vulnerable areas containing the most unique species.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"This is because the erosion of species-rich food webs makes biological communities more susceptible to future shocks," said Bradshaw, adding it was "a case of the rich losing their riches the fastest."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The research comes as a UN summit in Montreal attempts to seal a historic "peace pact with nature" and end the rampant destruction.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Global efforts to curb global warming have often eclipsed efforts to tackle the devastation being wrought on nature, but experts have increasingly warned that the two crises are inextricably linked.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"In many ways, biodiversity loss from climate change is far more serious than what climate change will do to human societies, because biodiversity is the very fabric of the Earth's life-support system that makes our lives possible," said Bradshaw.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"The imperative of massive and rapid emissions-reduction policies is made much more urgent knowing this." AFP</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; ">bnbd24/kh</div>