Climate change will have a rapidly increasing effect on the structure of global ecological communities over the next few decades, and is set to overtake land use as a major threat to biodiversity.
By producing detailed maps on the distribution of the world’s reptiles, an international team of scientists has completed the ‘atlas of life’, the first global review and map of every vertebrate species on Earth.
Study recommends that future research should focus on the availability of shade habitat and the energetic consequences of the behavioural changes that climate change may cause in the species.