Climate change is widely known to be affecting all parts of our planet. The 2023 IPCC report on climate change makes for uncomfortable reading; reporting the temperature of our planet is known to have risen 1.1 degrees celsius already and continues to rise. 

Some of the effects that have been seen as a result of this include summer arctic ice coverage smaller than it has been at any time in the last 1,000 years, ocean warming faster than anytime since the last ice age and the sea level rising faster than it has in the last 3,000 years. 

So what does this mean for wildlife here in the UK? 

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Ecosystems and their importance for wildlife 

Wildlife live in complex ecosystems that allow them to survive and thrive. Ecosystems are what make up the environment an animal lives in. It provides them with food, water and shelter; the basic needs to ensure they can survive, grow and reproduce. 

Rising temperatures affect availability of food sources including type and quality of vegetation, water availability, and the amount of time an animal can safely spend outside its shelter among other things. When one element of an ecosystem is removed, the whole system is damaged. The effects are much like touching one domino in a line and watching them all tumble. 

Rabbit and fox example:

A simple example of this would be a wild rabbit and a fox. The rabbit requires grass and wild plants to eat in order to grow, reproduce and gain nutrition. The fox, among other things, requires the rabbit as part of their diet. If the grass and plants all die, the rabbit has a limited source of food and eventually will not have enough food to sustain their population and their numbers will reduce.

As the rabbit numbers reduce, the fox will begin to struggle to find food that was once abundantly available. This will result in either the fox starving and reducing in numbers; or the fox having to adapt and move to a new location and find a new source of food. This can include moving into human settlements or other ecosystems, creating a ripple effect and a change in that ecosystem that ultimately affects all of the individuals in it. 

As you can see from this example nothing happened to either the rabbit or the fox as individuals. But the effect on the ecosystem they were living in, the death of the grass and the plants, had a massive effect on their populations and forced them to either die or adapt to a new habitat. 

If you think about this on a large scale, in a more complex ecosystem such as the amazon rainforest, or the African savanna – or a British woodland, lake, or meadow – you can see that one seemingly small change can have a massive knock on effect for all the plants and animals in the food chain that depend on each other for survival. 

So will climate change affect wildlife? 

Almost certainly yes, and it has already. The bleaching events which have affected parts of the great barrier reef due to rising ocean temperatures is one highly publicised example of how climate change has already affected our wildlife and ecosystems. 

Closer to home you may notice subtle changes in your garden wildlife, such as the time of year they are nesting, how long they are nesting for and the survival rate of their infants. Many of these animals are seasonal breeders; having infants in the spring and summer when the temperature is warming up and the weather is more favourable. As climate change takes hold we are seeing more extremes in weather, from flooding to extreme heat and unpredictable seasons. These changes, although many perceive them as subtle currently, have a huge impact on wildlife that depends on consistency in seasons to breed. If this continues it is likely the population levels of these species will be threatened; and as their ecosystems change more and more wildlife will be under threat. 

Summary: 

  • Climate change is a great risk to wildlife and ecosystems 
  • Rising temperatures affect food and water availability in ecosystems and increase the chance of extreme weather changes 
  • Wildlife depend on ecosystems to survive, small changes in ecosystems can have massive effects on large numbers of species, including those in the temperate UK

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