GLOBAL WARMING AND THE FUTURE FOR SPECIES

Abstract

A recent model based on Watson’s power lawfor the species-area relationship predicts that full globalwarming, projected up to the year 2050, could provoke thedisappearance of about one-quarter of existing species.Here the combination of two of the few unanimities inecology are worked out: Taylor’s and Watson’s power laws,where the former relates species variability with their meanabundance. Using this approach, how severely globalwarming would affect not only the number but the diversityof the surviving species was investigated, while givingindications for the post-disaster fate of the remainingspecies (extinction or recovery).Index Terms ⎯ Ecology, power laws, species.