SYDNEY, Dec. 24 (Xinhua) -- Aussie researchers from James Cook University have found that scores of bird species are migrating to higher altitudes to escape rising temperatures brought on by climate change, but for many, there is nowhere left to go.
The study, published in the PLOS ONE science journal and released to the public on Thursday, tracked the population and migration patterns of 42 bird species over 16 years in the Australian Wet Tropics in northeast Queensland.
The Wet Tropics area was listed as a World Heritage Area in 1988 due to its high biodiversity, and a large number of species endemic to the area -- not found anywhere else.
The study found that birds in the area adapted to a warm climate were thriving, seeing 3-fold population growth, however, bird species adapted to the higher, colder areas of the region were rapidly declining.
"They've lost anything between 30 and 60 percent of their total population," lead author on the study Professor Stephen Williams told Xinhua.
He said the study provided hard evidence for how they expected rising temperatures to impact upland birds in the area.
"That's exactly what we found, basically, that the high elevation species have been disappearing from the lower edges of where they used to occur," said Williams.
He said this is especially worrying since many of the upland bird species are only found in this area, such as the golden bowerbird and the mountain thornbill.
"Pretty much the entire bird assemblage of the rainforest, certainly the ones that we've got enough information to be confident about, is shifting exactly as you would predict with climate change."
He said the research highlights the fact that just because species live in a protected zone, does not mean they are not vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.
"There is a temptation for policy makers and environmental managers to consider that biodiversity within a protected area is safe. This is a dangerous, and in this case, incorrect assumption," read the study.
It noted that many species were on an "escalator to extinction", and action would be needed to prevent species extinction in this area and areas like this around the world. Enditem
