Amazon rainforest and coral reefs could 'collapse' in a few decades, scientists claim

Scientists claim that the Amazon could transform into "a savannah-type ecosystem with a mix of trees and grass”
Reuters
Kit Heren10 March 2020

The Amazon rainforest could "collapse" in just "a few decades", according to a new scientific study.

Writing for journal Nature Communications, researchers said that ecosystems like the Amazon and some coral reefs are deteriorating faster than expected.

Using data from computer models, scientists claim that the Amazon could transform into "a savannah-type ecosystem with a mix of trees and grass” in 49 years.

Caribbean coral reefs spanning nearly 8,000 square miles could bleach and lose much of their population within 15 years, according to the scientists.

Coral reefs may "collapse" faster than expected
Shutterstock

The research team included scientists from Bangor University, Southampton University and the School of Oriental & African Studies, University of London.

They studied data on the transformations of four land, 25 marine and 13 freshwater ecosystems.

Dr Simon Willcock, of Bangor University’s School of Natural Sciences, who was one of the study's lead authors, said: “Unfortunately, what our paper reveals is that humanity needs to prepare for changes far sooner than expected.

“These rapid changes to the world’s largest and most iconic ecosystems would impact the benefits which they provide us with, including everything from food and materials, to the oxygen and water we need for life.”

The researchers found that larger ecosystems are likely to collapse slower than their smaller counterparts - although once the breakdown begins in large ecosystems it takes place faster.

Professor John Dearing of Southampton University, who led the research, added: “We intuitively knew that big systems would collapse more slowly than small ones – due to the time it takes for impacts to diffuse across large distances.

“But what was unexpected was the finding that big systems collapse much faster than you might expect – even the largest on Earth only taking possibly a few decades.”

But Dr Erika Berenguer of the University of Oxford and Lancaster University, who was not involved in the study, took issue with the scientists' findings.

She said that the researchers' claims about Amazon will become a “savannah-type ecosystem” were untested because they didn't use data from a tropical rainforest.

Dr Berenguer continued: “While there is no doubt that the Amazon is at great risk and that a tipping point is likely, such inflated claims do not help either science or policy-making.”

Additional reporting by PA Media

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