Summary:
Exposure to heatwaves, wildfires, droughts and river floods is projected to increase across terrestrial animal habitats, with overlapping events becoming more common, according to a study published in Nature Ecology & Evolution.
Researchers led by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) combined species range data with climate impact projections for 33,936 terrestrial vertebrate species and 794 ecoregions. Under a medium to high emissions scenario, 36% of the area within species’ current habitats could be exposed to more than one type of extreme event by 2085.
By 2050, heatwaves affect 74% of these areas, alongside 16% exposed to wildfires, 8% to droughts and 3% to river floods. Biodiversity-rich regions, including the Amazon basin, parts of Africa and Southeast Asia, are among those facing increasing exposure.
The number of ecoregions exposed to multiple extremes rises from 22 in 2050 to 236 by 2085. The results point to combined climate pressures as a significant factor in future biodiversity decline, while lower emissions scenarios substantially limit the extent of these risks.
— Press Release —
A third of animal habitats on land could experience multiple extreme events by 2085, new study
By 2085, 36 percent of species’ current habitats on land could be exposed to multiple types of climate-driven extreme events such as heatwaves, fire or floods if warming continues to rise into the latter half of the century. The findings are part of a new study published in Nature Ecology & Evolution, authored by an international team of 18 scientists, and led by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK).
“I think climate change, and in particular extreme events, are still really being underestimated when it comes to conservation planning. It’s not just going to be a gradual shift of temperature over many years,” commented lead author Stefanie Heinicke, a postdoctoral researcher at PIK.
Just one heatwave, flood or fire can devastate animal populations. When multiple types of extreme events succeed one another, impacts on species and habitats are compounded. Previous literature showed following the 2019-2020 fires in Australia, there were 27-40 percent greater declines in plant and animal species in areas that had experienced a drought immediately beforehand.
However, rapidly cutting emissions to net zero could still largely prevent these impacts. In a scenario in which warming starts to reverse in the latter part of the century, land animal’s habitat that would experience multiple types of events by 2085 would be limited to just 9 percent.
“There’s still a lot of difference we can make by cutting emissions as fast as we can from today,” Heinicke added.
Impact modelling for biodiversity
The paper takes a novel approach to look at climate change’s impacts on biodiversity. It uses outputs from climate impact models, which can provide different kinds of data on more complex impacts from climate change beyond rising heat, such as flooded area and wildfire projections.
For example, the authors were able to see that by 2050 in a scenario in which warming continues into the latter half of the century, 74 percent of current animal habitats on land will be exposed to heatwaves, 16 percent to wildfire, 8 percent to droughts and 3 percent to river floods. This includes key species-rich areas in the Amazon basin, Africa and Southeast Asia.
“The wildfire projections being so significant is really notable. I don’t know of another study that has projected wildfire exposure for animals yet, so seeing that there is a bigger threat from fires than drought for example; this was a significant blind spot,” said Katja Frieler, a co-author on the paper who leads the Inter-Sectoral Impact Model Intercomparison Project, and is a research department head at PIK.
Journal Reference:
Heinicke, S., Zantout, K., Kühl, H.S., Reyer, C.P.O., Zimmermann, S., Billing, M., Gosling, S.N., Grillakis, M., Hantson, S., Ito, A., Kou-Giesbrecht, S., Koutroulis, A., Mester, B., Schmeid, H.M., Ostberg, S., Otta, K., Pokhrel, Y., Frieler, K., ‘Land vertebrates increasingly exposed to multiple extreme events by 2085’, Nature Ecology & Evolution (2026). DOI: 10.1038/s41559-026-03050-0
Article Source:
Press Release/Material by Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK)
Featured image credit: mana5280 | Unsplash
