Ecosystems and Climate Change

Part of the Climate Change exhibition.

Is global climate change affecting the other species with which we share the planet? Absolutely. Experts studying animals from birds to butterflies to disease-carrying insects agree: many species show the unmistakable fingerprint of the change we're causing. For instance, some species have responded to warming by shifting their ranges—or trying to. But with cities, towns and farms taking up some 40 percent of the landscape in a crazy-quilt pattern, many habitats are already fragmented, and some species will have nowhere to go.