Mar. 30, 2012 Extreme weather such as hurricanes, torrential
downpours and droughts will become more frequent in pace with
global warming. Consequently, this increases the risk for
species extinction, especially in bio diverse ecosystems such as
coral reefs and tropical rainforests. Human impact means that
flora and fauna become extinct at a rate 100–1000 times higher
than normal. Climate change has been deemed as one of the main
causes of species depletion. A research team in theoretical
biology at Linköping University has, through the use of
mathematical modelling and simulation, studied how the dynamics
of different types of ecosystems may be affected by significant
environment fluctuations. Linda Kaneryd, doctoral student and
lead author of a study recently published in the journal,
Ecology and Evolution, says the results were surprising.
“Several previous studies of food web structures have suggested
that species-rich ecosystems are often more robust than species-
poor ecosystems. However at the onset of