In the last decade, report after report has warned that the Arctic is heating up faster than ever, cities are scorching, the Amazon is blazing, boreal forests are shrinking and the oceans are simmering — all because of human-caused climate change (How do we know? Here’s an evidence-based tool that tells us how much our emissions contribute to each of these). As ecosystems morph on a heating planet, the biodiversity they harbor — the fish, the birds, the mammals and billions of invertebrates — also faces the wrath of climate change. But where does climate change rank among the host of threats wildlife face today? A new first-of-its-kind analysis of more than 70,000 wild animal species found that climate change is now the third-biggest threat to Earth’s wildlife, after habitat loss and overexploitation. Climate change threatens nearly 5% of these species, with ocean invertebrates imperiled the most, according to the study, published in the journal BioScience. “Our goal was to shine a spotlight on the growing, often underappreciated role of climate change in the global biodiversity crisis,” study lead author William Ripple from Oregon State University told Mongabay by email. “We’re seeing clear signs that climate change is no longer a distant threat; it’s already disrupting wild animal populations around the globe.” Ripple is also the director of the Alliance of World Scientists. The researchers looked at more than 70,000 species of wild animals assessed by the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species — a catalog of conservation status and…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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