Seven Mostly Awful Climate Change Winners

By Laura DattaroPublished: Oct 10, 2013, 11:34 AM EDTweather.com

 

Mosquitoes

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Species around the world are finding their way of life threatened by a warming planet, whether it’s polar bears having less sea ice to hunt from or cheetahs going blind from encroaching woody plants. But the changes, at least in the short term, seem to be benefiting a few species. They’re enjoying longer breeding seasons and expanded habitat ranges.
In the world of plants, you can likely bet on the weeds, biologist Steven Franks told Weather.com. Franks, a professor at Fordham University, studies the evolutionary responses of plants to climate change. He predicts weeds and invasive species will come out ahead as the climate warms.
“They have short generation times, which allow them to evolve quickly, and they are good at dispersal so they can shift their ranges more easily,” Franks said. “A lot of studies have found that plants are able to adjust to climatic changes, but maybe not fast enough to adjust to the rapid rate” at which the climate is currently changing.
How the world of wildlife will respond in the coming years is an area of active research, he said, and the answers are not well known. Overall, scientists expect a decline in biodiversity, but some species are likely to fare better than others. And in a rapidly changing world, they have only two choices.
“Adapt or move,” Franks said. “Or both.”
Here we look at a few species that, at least for the moment, are enjoying the change in clime. First up, the dreaded mosquito.
Perhaps no creature on Earth is as widely disliked as the lowly mosquito. Even the spider, considered by many a creature to avoid, is given a pass for eating the obnoxious, disease-carrying bugs. Perhaps, then, those looking for ways to promote climate change mitigation need look no further than recent research that shows that in a warmer world, mosquitos will propagate the land, bringing not just annoyance but dangerous diseases with them. By the end of the century, mosquitoes are predicted to infest every city on the Atlantic Coast of the United States, doubling the percentage of people in the northeastern U.S. who cohabit with the bugs.

 

 

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