Researchers from the University of Washington based on the analysis of data for 40 years, showed how increasing the number of parasites with climate change. Their work, scientists published in the journal Trends in Ecology and Evolution.
“Most of the known information shows how organisms and ecosystems can respond to gradual climate change, says lead author Daniel Claar, postdoc at the University of Washington. — However, climate change causes not only a gradual warming, but also increases the frequency and magnitude of extreme events such as heat wave”.
As gradual and sudden warming impact on ecosystems, but do it differently. Organisms may be able to adapt and keep pace with the gradual warming, but a dramatic event may have a sudden and profound implications. This wave happened, for example, in the period from 2013 to 2015. Suddenly the population of sea stars were attacked by the pathogen, which destroyed a large part of it along the Pacific coast of the United States and Canada. Then it was associated with the spread of discoverys, which is activated due to abnormal warming of waters in the region.
Biologists wanted to show how the number of dangerous to living things parasites under the action of sharply rising global temperature. The authors showed that the parasites, which usually are usually found on land increased in numbers 283 times in the last 40 years, although the relationship between the thermal waves and their propagation have not yet been clarified.
The relationship between hosts, parasites and their respective communities are complex and depend on many factors, making it difficult to predict. As a result, the researchers came to the conclusion that such a strong increase in the number of parasitic organisms, most likely, caused not a simple gradual warming and more dramatic event of the raising of the ambient temperature.
