How does global warming affect animals?

Answer 1

Actually it affects the wildlife by making them move habitats......Example: Sharks like warm water and currently they live in and around Australia. So if the water gets warmer in other areas, then the sharks will move to the other places and that can affect animals.

In other cases, animals can not migrate to cooler areas, for example if their habitat has gradually become surrounded by farmland and communities. Because global warming is occurring at a faster rate than at any previous time in the earth's history, many species may simply become extinct.

A particular case is that of the caribou. Science Daily warns that fewer caribou calves are being born and more of them are dying in West Greenland as a result of a warming climate. Data shows that this is occurring because spring plant growth is occurring earlier and the timing of peak food availability no longer corresponds to the timing of caribou births. When the animals arrive at their calving grounds now, pregnant females find that the plants on which they depend already have reached peak productivity and have begun to decline in nutritional value. This phenomenon, called trophic mismatch, is a predicted consequence of climate change.

A:

Animals live in a habitat that suits them. The temperature is right, food is available in their food chain, and predators and competitors manage to co-exist in a sustainable fashion.

Global warming changes all that. Habitats and food chains are changed. Predators losing their prey have to seek another species to survive. Animals have to move, adapt or they die. Animals that are highly specialised in what they eat or where they live are in most danger.

• Polar bears rely on Arctic sea ice to catch enough seals to last through the lengthening summers. This sea ice is reducing each winter. Starving female bears raiding rubbish bins are not able to produce and rear cubs.
• Koalas eat a certain kind of eucalyptus leaf. Rising temperatures in Australia encourage bush fires and forest destruction.
• Animals that live on high mountains can't climb higher to escape the heat.
• Adélie Penguins in Antarctica live on krill, tiny crustaceans that eat algae under the sea ice. As ice sheets contract, penguins have to swim further to find krill. Using more energy to find food means they are less able to successfully breed.
• The orange-spotted filefish is dependent on coral reefs, and very sensitive to water temperature. Coral reefs are declining because of climate change and this fish is threatened.