Study: climate change will lead to the death of one third of all parasites
Due to global warming one third of the parasites by 2070 die, scientists have found.
However, despite all the problems that carry parasites, it can turn into a disaster, destroying the existing ecosystem. On the prospects and their fears, the researchers reported in a paper in the journal Science Advances.
To find out how climate change can affect the life of parasites, the biologist Colin Carlson and his colleagues turned to the National collections of parasites of the United States. It was established in 1892 and contains many instances of parasites from around the world. They got into the collection in different years, that has allowed to figure out which intraspecific changes have occurred over time. For a more accurate analysis the team also used information from specialized databases. The team had to spend a lot of time to determine the geographic coordinates of a particular instance.
When sufficient information was finally collected, the researchers modeled the changes that will occur with 457 types of parasites as climate warming.