CLIMATE CHANGE is driving many species of plants, amphibians and other creatures to extinction, and there will be consequences for all of us. Plants and animals are a proven source for substances that could deliver novel drugs and treatments for human diseases.
The resultant disappearance of biodiversity will cause "huge" losses to medical science, according to the authors of a new book, Sustaining Life.
Published by Oxford University Press and launched this morning by the United Nations Environment Programme, its authors highlight the true significance behind the loss, for example, of frogs and other amphibians.
Nearly one-third of all the 6,000 known species of frogs, toads, newts and salamanders are threatened with extinction, the authors indicate. These animals produce a wide range of substances that may be important for human medicine.
The Panamanian poison frog, for example, produces pumiliotoxins that strengthen heart contractions and could lead to new heart drugs. Ecuadorian poison frogs produce chemicals that have potential as powerful pain killers and antibacterial compounds have been identified in compounds produced in the skin of a number of frog species including the Mexican leaf frog.
Substances with medicinal potential don't just come from amphibians, the authors state. Novel substances have been recovered from species as varied as bears, cone snails, pine trees, sharks and horseshoe crabs.
While not all these species currently face extinction, any loss of biodiversity could represent an incalculable loss to humanity, the authors argue.
Our warming climate has been identified as a driver of species loss, as highlighted in Sustaining Life but also in new research published nearly every week.
For example, the journal Naturepublishes research this morning in its Nature Reports Climate Change section (www.nature.com/climate) showing that "global warming is a key conspirator" in the rapid disappearance of the harlequin frog from the American tropics. Dr J Alan Pounds of the Tropical Science Centre's Monteverde Cloud Forest Preserve in Costa Rica and colleagues published data on the climate link two years ago in Nature, but this was later challenged by research that claimed the chytrid fungus was wiping out the harlequin frog.
Dr Pounds joined with Dr Luis Coloma based in Quito, Ecuador, to re-examine the data and the two claim climate change is the primary threat to the frog. "What matters is not who the winner is, but what the truth is about why the frogs are vanishing," Dr Pounds said.
The impact of climate change can be unexpected, as seen in another research report also published this morning in Nature. The tiny mountain pine beetle has become a factor in speeding up climate change by helping to release back into the atmosphere carbon formerly locked away in the forests of Canada.
Dr Werner Kurz of the Canadian Forest Service showed how the beetle, Dendroctonus ponderosae, was changing British Columbia's forests from a small carbon sink to a large carbon source.