About 60% of cactus species will suffer the effects of global warming in the coming decades.
This is the result of a study conducted by American researchers.
Their work challenges the assumption that these plants will thrive with rising temperatures.
By adding other factors (disappearance of habitats, degradation of the natural environment), up to 90% of cacti could be threatened with extinction by 2070, i.e. three times the current estimate, notes the study published on Thursday. in
Nature Plants
.
More than 400 species studied
Some 1,500 species of cacti spread over the American continent live in different climates, ranging from deserts to the high mountains of the Andes, from arid ecosystems to tropical rainforests.
Species-rich biodiversity hotspots include central Mexico and the Atlantic Forest along the coast of Brazil.
The researchers wanted to test the hypothesis that cacti would benefit from a warmer, more drought-prone world.
They examined data on more than 400 species and used models to predict their evolution to 2050 and beyond, under different greenhouse gas emission scenarios.
Increased risk due to climate change
The results "paint a more pessimistic future", according to the study.
Currently, cacti are threatened by agriculture, degradation of the natural environment, loss of biodiversity and their harvesting for various purposes.
Even without climate change, cacti “constitute one of the most endangered groups of organisms on the planet,” the authors note.
More than 30% of them are classified as threatened with extinction.
And global warming will soon be a threat too.
“Our results suggest that climate change will become a major driver of cactus extinction risk, with 60-90% of assessed species negatively affected,” the researchers note.
By 2070, around 25% of cactus species could experience an unknown climate across a quarter of their current range.
Previous studies already showed that photosynthesis – the process by which plants use sunlight to grow from CO2 and water – was compromised by warming.
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