THERE could be a lot fewer plant and animal species on Earth in the next 80 years. A new study into the effect of the climate crisis on loss of habit and biodiversity (see box) has found that more than 1 in 10 species might go extinct.
How the research was done
Researchers used a supercomputer to build virtual models of the planet and had thousands of species “live” there to see what happens when some of these species go extinct.
This way they could predict the ripple effect one species going extinct has on others. For example, if a predator’s main prey becomes extinct due to the climate crisis, we call it “primary extinction”. But because that predator species no longer has its food source, it will also go extinct, which is called “co-extinction”.
What did they find?
The researchers explored several scenarios. If carbon-dioxide emissions stay at their current levels, 6% of plant and animal species (6 out of every 100) will disappear by the year
