Over the past half century, the Amazon rainforest has lost some 20% of its area, mostly to cattle ranching. Other tropical forests around the world have suffered a similar decline. Rainforests are home to around half of Earth’s terrestrial plant and animal species, including unknown numbers that have yet to be discovered. As deforestation continues, those species could be lost.
That’s not news, of course: Rainforest conservation movements have been around for more than 30 years. But now, Rebecca Senior of the University of Sheffield has probed the problem from a new angle: As part of her PhD research under the joint supervision of David Edwards and Jane Hill, she found that not only does deforestation reduce the amount of available habitat, it also makes it harder for rainforest species to shift their ranges in response to climate change.1
As the world warms, species will find themselves increasingly ill-adapted...
