Cutting -edge 丨 Data shows that the heat waves will become more frequent on the earth's life?

Zhejiang News Client reporter strict grains

Vajrayana in the tropical rain forest. Visual China Photo Conferry

Throughout the world, this summer can be summarized with a word, which is "hot".

A few days ago, since the establishment of a meteorological early warning mechanism, the Central Meteorological Observatory has continuously released the highest -level high -temperature red warning.

The data of the World Meteorological Organization shows that this year's scale and degree of heat waves will become more and more frequent in the next few decades; the latest global climate change update report released by the organization in May this year predicts that between 2022 and 2026, the global worldwide The possibility of an annual average temperature temporarily increased by 1.5 degrees Celsius before industrialization. In addition, at least one year between 2022 and 2026 will become the hottest probability of 93%of the hottest years of records.

One fact is in front of people again: the earth is warming at an unprecedented speed.

Climate change in history will have a long -term impact on species evolution. Recently, research at Harvard University shows that about 250 million years ago, the fuse of the large outbreak of reptile species may be the global temperature rising worldwide that has begun for millions of years, rather than people who previously thought of filling the large -scale extinction and retention of mammals. The gap below.

So, how will the earth's life, including human beings evolved in the future when the climate gradually warms? Will there be a big explosion of species? Numerous studies have told us that reality may not be exactly what we think.

Birds change the habit with temperature

Evolution longer wings and smaller body

To some extent, the climate does have a strong relationship with their evolution. Scientific research shows that in recent decades, animals are survived in the way of changing their bodies or behaviors.

Birds are excellent observation objects. As global warming, millions of birds have been forced to change their living habits with the change of temperature. Therefore, they are usually called "climate sentry".

In a remote corner of the Amazon Rainforest in Brazil, some scientists collected and studied 77 non -migrating bird species from 1979 to 2019. They were surprised to find that climate change is turning the birds here -they are evolving longer wings and smaller bodies.

Studies have pointed out that almost all observations of birds have declined, especially since 1980, a decrease of up to 2%every ten years. At the same time, one -third of birds have become longer. Among them, the average weight of gray throat ants decreased by 6.36%, while the length of the wings increased by 1.62%.

The corresponding climate factor is that the average temperature during the research period is rising, but precipitation is decreasing. In other words, the climate there is hotter and dry as a whole.

Not only birds, but also scientists discovered by studying Chinese bats, pigs, and rabbits that the bodies of these mammals are quietly changing. Their tails, ears, and legs have become slightly larger in the past few decades.

According to the law of Bergman, the species living in warm areas is always small, and the proportion of body surface area is relatively high; Allen's law further supplements that warm -blooded animals living in hot areas are better than warm blood animals living in temperate regions. The larger accessories to increase the surface area of ​​the animal's body.

In short, animals are evolving a larger body surface area to adapt to more and more hot weather in order to dissipate heat. So that scientists boldly speculate that we may see the fairy tale in the reality and welcome a "small flying elephant" in the real world.

Crup National Park is one of the oldest and richest tropical rainforests in Africa. In terms of plant and animal diversity, it has a virgin forest of 1,260 square kilometers. Visual China Photo Conferry

"This evolution trend is rational." Since studying for doctorate in the United States, Zhen Ying, a special researcher at the School of Life Sciences of the University of West Lake, has been participating in an international cooperation project about gene diversity research. This study also proves the important impact of climate change on biological evolution.

This international cooperation project from the hot spot of the world's species diversity in Africa's tropical rain forest, 9 representative species from plants to large mammals were selected as research objects, and by understanding how the environment affects existing biological genetic diversity Combined with the simulated future environment to infer what the creatures that can adapt to the environment after decades, what kind of genetic diversity should be turned into. This research helps help the current candidate natural reserve. The larger the required regions, the more needed to protect it -because in reality, it may be more difficult to change so much in a short time.

Studies have found that in many environmental factors such as rainfall, trees coverage, and sunshine length, temperature and altitude are factor that can best affect gene diversity. The richer the genetic diversity of creatures, the more likely it is to survive the environment that can adapt to the rapid change. Zhen Ying believes that the evolution of organisms is based on genetic mutation. Because genetic mutations are random, and the choice pressure of creatures is more complicated, in general, the process of accurately predicting the future evolution of a specific species remains still More challenging.

"Darwin evolution theory tells us that the choice pressure brought by environmental factors will choose the species that can better survive and reproduce in the genetic pool of the organisms. In this way, when the ethnic group is coming in the environment, if there are individuals in the population, there are already individuals in the population. Carrying the genes that can adapt to the survival of the environment, they can produce more offspring and make the entire population more adaptable to the future environment. "She said. May change the ecological environment

How to affect human behavior

So, will high temperature affect human genes?

Internationally, scientists have found that climate change is likely to change the ecological environment and affect human behavior, and then evolve.

For example, some disease -resistant genes within humans will change.

Taking Mediterranean anemia as an example, from the perspective of the world's onset, its high incidence areas are basically the same as malaria and high -incidence areas, concentrated in the tropical or subtropical regions such as the Mediterranean, Southeast Asia, and Africa.

The reason why this blood disease has existed for a long time is because they have a side effects that are beneficial to humans -people carrying specific genes can resist the serious attack of malaria. In the ancient times that lack medical methods, when facing the death threat of malaria and the anemia that may not be seriously killed, survival is the supremacy of human beings. Therefore, the environment has chosen people in these areas to leave the genes of thalassemia to exchange the ability to resist malaria.

"It is caused by Plasmodium, and Plasmodium is transmitted through the infected mosquito. The growth and development of the peeps are determined by the environmental temperature. In the case of climate change, there have been reports that the distribution of certain mosquito species has occurred in the north. Move, the distribution range of pathogen bacteria carried by mosquitoes will also change, which may also affect the distribution and hot areas of human -related diseases. "Zhen Ying reminded.

Will the original high -incidence zone of the disease change, what kind of new diseases will appear, and what kind of response will the local crowd genes make? These issues need to be studied by scientists.

The genetic changes in the birds of the birds studied by Zhen Ying in different regions have been almost the edge of the differentiation of species -their different calls will greatly affect the mating behavior. Her research sampling spans a number of groups from tropical rain forests to tropical rare tree grasslands. It was found that "geographical isolation and environment are important factor affecting geneticization."

For example, the large number of insects and the rapid evolution of species such as the large number of insects and the rapid progress of generations. In recent years, some scientists have tested mosquito sterilization in order to eliminate epidemic diseases such as dengue fever. They put male mosquitoes carrying a kind of endogenous bacteria on an island and mate with wild female mosquitoes without such endogenous bacteria. According to expectations, they cannot produce descendants that can be raised. In this way, the number of mosquitoes can be reduced. This strategy has significant effects in the past few years. The mosquito slowly brought this endogenous bacteria.

Protect biological diversity

Carry out the possibility of human future survival

On the surface, human beings can cope with global warming with technological means such as better energy utilization, more air conditioners, better house design, and greater flood control systems. Animals seem to be able to adapt to the new environment with faster evolution.

In fact, the speed of biological evolution cannot keep up with climate change. Humans cannot be alone.

For two neighboring species, scientists can estimate their differentiation time, thereby calculating the life period of their common ancestors and the temperature and rainfall of their habitat.

Earlier, some scientists conducted research and estimation of 570 existing vertebrates of 17 types of groups, and found that the average adaptation rate of 15 of them was slower than 1 million years, and the other two groups were slightly faster, but they were still slower than slower than that 2 ℃ per million years.

Today, especially after the industrial revolution, climate change is becoming more and more severe, so that the speed of warming is 1.5 ° C per 100 years. According to predictions, this speed will increase without control. In converted, the growth of biological evolution can be accelerated to keep up with climate change.

How is this possible?

The Global Evaluation Report of Biological Diversity and Ecosystem Services released by the United Nations in May 2019 shows that 1 million of the 8 million species around the world are threatened by extinction due to human activities. Higher than 10 million years ago.

Tibetan antelope in Coco Xili Reserve. Visual China Photo Conferry

In Zhen Ying's view, protecting biodiversity is the top priority, because it supports the natural system of human life and "carries the possibility of future human survival."

The food chains in the world are intertwined and dependent on each other. Today, there are more than 40,000 powder on the earth, more than 75%of the main crops and 80%of flowering plants are dependent on animal paste. It is precisely because of the diversity of pink animals that the diverse plants have been smoothly reproduced from generation to generation, and at the same time, it also guarantees human food safety.

History does tell us that human food safety cannot rely on a large -scale single plant. For example, when potatoes were introduced to Europe for the first time at the end of the 16th century, Ireland used almost all cultivated land to grow potatoes, so that other local crops were almost stable. Until the mid -19th century, large -scale single -planted potatoes were destroyed. The famine spread to Ireland, causing more than 1 million people to starve to death, and more than 1.5 million people immigrated abroad.

The story of Irish potato tells us that when a generation lives, the influence of some "unimportant" species at present will often appear through generations of people. According to research, in nature, the extinction of each species will cause the extinction of about 20 species related to it.

As early as two thousand years ago, the Chinese sinensis had proposed the idea of ​​"the world is giving birth to me, and everything with me is one", which reflects the concept of harmonious symbiosis of man and nature. In 1992, the "Biological Diversity Convention" was signed at the United Nations Environment and Development Conference. my country is also one of the earliest signed countries.

Grand pandas have been threatened from "endangered" to "easy danger", and the magnificent scene of the Tibetan Plateau Tibetan antelope "Thousands of Sheep Ben" has reproduced again. The protection of biological diversity has achieved considerable results as an important part of the construction of ecological civilization.

However, from the perspective of global and time and space, the protection of biodiversity is still facing huge challenges. The Biological diversity goal "Aistent Target" formulated by the United Nations in 2011-2020 is fully realized.

This way to save "the possibility of human survival in the future" is still far away.

Belly Top Mountain Bark. Visual China Photo Conferry

【Extended Reading】

They have brown and black "hats" on their white cheeks, and they frequently make crisp and pleasant tweets. They are petite and agile. They often come out in the willow bushes in humid areas. They are harsh on their nest requirements ... They are brown -headed mountains -Britain's current "most threatened" birds.

According to the British Royal Bird Protection Association, in the past 50 years, the number of brown -headed mountains living in the UK has decreased by 94%due to factors such as climate change. This summer, rare high -temperature weather further exacerbates the survival threat of British brown -headed mountain sparrows.

The British Fernaben Ibane Nature Reserve, built in the coal mine site, is a habitat in the brown -headed mountain sparrow. In this waters, the reeds are rippling, the grass and the woods are everywhere, and there are a large group of lively neighbors in the brown -headed mountain sparrow: the temper of Mu crow is elusive. The fish that have passed is a favorite playmate of children's tourists lying on the wooden bridge. The staff of the protected area also bring new members such as butterflies every year.

This summer, rare high temperature weather caused this original humid area to encounter dangerous wildfires. A sudden wildfire allowed the 16 -hectare ecological forest land in the Ferburne Essee Reserve to disappear, which is equivalent to about 20 football fields. Flames and smoke not only devoured many lives including brown -headed sparrows, but also destroyed their homes that they lived.

Many long -term biological diversity protection work is also torch. The coal stored underground in the protected area doubled the destruction of the fire. After a few days when the soil was extinguished by the fire, it still burned like a bonfire, and released the carbon that had been "locked" into the atmosphere. For the surviving animals, breeding and foraging have become more difficult.

Holding the burnt bird skull, Tom Haman, the head of the Ferborn Ens Reserve, pointed out that the continuous high temperature weather caused the plants under the canopy to be abnormally dry and turned the grass of the forest land into flammable materials. Cause fire. The "consequences are devastating" caused by the wildfire, which allows some of the restoration of this habitat to "retreat for about 30 years". What is worse is that some soils that are vital to ecology will not be repaired. "Very clear signs show that we are facing climate crisis."

The disaster scene of the Felbene Essee Reserve is not unique. Relevant data shows that this summer, the severe damage caused by fires across the United Kingdom is 4 times the season average. The fire not only lost wild animals, but also caused damage to houses, stores and public places. The Royal Bird Protection Association commented: "This is a clear reminder. The devastating effect of climate change is at the door of our house."

Not only the United Kingdom, but most of Europe have experienced heat waves again and again in the near future, and many regions have set a historical highest temperature record. Italy, Germany, France, Spain and other countries are suffering from severe drought, and the local animals and plants, ecological environment, and difficulty of biodiversity protection have been severely impacted.

The flocks on the dry river bed in the Danube River in Romania have been available. The surviving waterfowls can only find water sources in the cracks of lakes in Lake Wearel, Hungary. Dozens of deer died in the Barcelona Mountains Natural Park in southern Spain, hundreds of Only frogs died of suffocating by Lake Peter Luis in France ...

Corina Le Correy, a professor of climate change at the University of Dongying Geely University, told Xinhua News Agency that climate change has a wide range of impact on ecosystems around the world, and climate change is faster than the adaptive action of human society.

The Director of the World Nature Foundation Malco Lambertini said in an interview with Xinhua News Agency: "We are facing a triple crisis of climate change, environmental pollution, and biodiversity loss. The system, any pressure applied to the earth's ecosystem will affect other fields. "

Lambertini pointed out that humans must unite and join hands in dealing with global issues.Biodiversity protection, ocean protection, climate change and other issues need to be solved globally through coordination and consistent action plans.Go to the interests of everyone. "On the burnt soil in the Felbene Essee Reserve, a white feathers left by the brown -headed mountain sparrow were particularly eye -catching.Lambertini said: "In the past few decades, the natural environment has lost a lot and continues today. We need to terminate this state and reverse. By protecting nature, we can effectively protect our future and our future. This is a win -win situation."

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