European mammals make like Gerard Depardieu, flee to Russia
from Grist:
European mammals make like Gerard Depardieu, flee to Russia
By James West
By 2080, Russia might witness a vast mammalian invasion, as sub-arctic European animals flee global warming and adapt to a thawing tundra. New textbooks may need to accommodate never-before-seen communities of species as climate change pits predator against predator beyond the Russian steppe. That’s what a group of Swedish researchers predict in a new climate change study published in the journal, PloS One.
“North Western Russia will be some kind of hotspot of species richness,” said Christer Nilsson, an ecology professor, via Skype from Umeå University in Sweden. “Species will be on the move and there will be new combinations of species.”
Red and fallow deer, wild boar, the Eurasian badger, rabbits, mice, and beavers will all be on the move as new tracts of habitable land open up.
In a surprising twist, Nilsson and his team found that most species in the Barents Region, which includes the northern half of Norway, Sweden, Finland, and a big chunk of Northwestern Russia, will actually be favored by climate change. Forty-three out of the 61 animals studied will expand and shift their “ranges” — or habitats — mostly in a northeasterly direction, sometimes traveling hundreds of miles. ....................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://grist.org/climate-energy/european-mammals-make-like-gerard-depardieu-flee-to-russia/
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