MUNICH (dpa-AFX) – Climate change is advancing and poses difficulties for people, animals and plants. However, some heat-loving species also benefit in certain regions, as researchers from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) show in a study. To do this, they evaluated the database system of species protection mapping (ASK) at the Bavarian State Office for the Environment (LfU), which includes around 3.1 million species records in Bavaria.
In their study, the scientists focused on analyzing the population of a good 200 species of insects – specifically 120 butterflies, 50 grasshoppers and 60 dragonflies. Accordingly, it was consistently shown that the abundance of thermophilic species increased, while the occurrence of species adapted to cooler temperatures decreased.
The grey-blue bluling (a butterfly), the crab chicken (a grasshopper) and the fire dragonfly are heat-adapted. “The fire dragonfly is one of the best-known beneficiaries of global warming. The large dragonfly, originally distributed in the Mediterranean region, first appeared in Bavaria in the early 1990s and is now widespread,” said Christian Hof, head of the BioChange research group at TUM. The cold-adapted species include the Alpine fritillary, the Alpine mountain cricket and the Lesser moss damsel.
Butterflies and grasshoppers have seen more declines than increases, while dragonflies have shown mostly positive trends, it said. “One possible reason for this is the improvement in water quality over the last few decades, which is particularly beneficial for dragonflies that depend on water habitats.” According to the study, those species that are adapted to very specific ecosystems declined in population, for example butterflies such as the greater meadow bird or the raised bog blueling.
“Our study proves that the effects of climate change are also leaving clear traces in our native insect fauna,” says Diana Bowler from the German Center for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv), which was involved in the study. The study also shows how exciting results can be obtained from existing official data sets. According to Bowler./fuw/DP/zb, such data sets should be accessed much more often