Healthy Debate!!

[soulweaver]

Okay lately there has been some heated debates, so i thought i would put this up as a bit of fun, too see what people think.

Hopefully it doesn't get too heated.

Anways i put it too you that due to Gloabal Warming that snakes and reptiles alike are moving south, and eventually althought it maybe 50 years away the northern states will have a hard time keeping reptiles, unless by climate control, and that wild populations will either be gone, or have moved south.

If you take in just Victoria for example, over the years we have seen wild populations of diamond pythons, and late last year/early this year had a postive account of N.S.W death adders being on this side of the border.

These are just some of the examples..........

So is global warming sending reptiles south?

cheers

SW

[Hix]

I don't think it's necessarily sending them south just yet. I think it's more a case of escapees being found, and range extensions being discovered by the ever increasing population of amateur herpers.



Hix

[waruikazi]

Have to agree with Hix on that one. I think it is far more likely that people are just looking for them alot more than they have been in the past or that people are moving into their habitat more than they used to.

[jordo]

It would be true to some degree although I think it will take a lot longer than 50 years, because global warming is so slow a lot of species might adapt to warmer temperature and evolve to become more capable of losing heat, not changing their range at all.

[jessop]

I do believe the changing climate would definately have some affects on reptile. I tend to think that instead of driving snakes south, global warming will force snakes to evolve and adapt. Evolution of the species... Some species will possibly die out, and others will be able to tolerate and possibly thrive in the 'eventual' change of conditions. Really don't know though. Good topic Souley

[Sparty]

The media unrealistically accentuate the phenomena of global warming to a level at which we actually quantify the time we 'have left'. While this is to some point realistic that eventually we will run out of time if we do not adapt, when such a complicated tropical ecological system is considered, we would be foolish to be able to predict it's change.

While some snakes thrive in new climates, others will not, and as such the natural cycle of niche finding will continue. At some point we have to acknowledge that the niche of some species will not be stable forever, and we have to enbrace the fact that new species will always take over the weaker one.

It's a way of life, however, I boldly propose that there will always be a species of snake found anywhere in this country. There will never be a spot where no snake can inhabit. They are too versitile to be driven out of anywhere...

[Magpie]

I think rainfall changes will have a far greater effect.
2 or 3 years of serious drought will wipe out almost all native species in an area.

[waruikazi]

Some species may die out in the wild but i do not think that any repriles in aus will ever decome extict because of the captive populations.

[Hix]

Originally Posted by jordo

It would be true to some degree although I think it will take a lot longer than 50 years, because global warming is so slow a lot of species might adapt to warmer temperature and evolve to become more capable of losing heat, not changing their range at all.

I have to agree. But I think that, over 50 years, the changes will most likely be behavioural and not physiological.



Hix

[JandC_Reptiles]

I think you are right.
I am sure I have seen a whole stack of Snakes riding on birds backs migrating south for the winter

[jordo]

Shudder at the thought of cane toads making there way down to Vic in the future.

[soulweaver]

Think it would be too cold atm, they would survive summer but i think our winter would kill them.

You never know they could be heading south because of global warming

[dugadugabowbow]

I don't think anything moving south is because of climate change, one thing i can think of, like in the case of death adders, we have given them means of moving south with roads bridges etc.
Diamonds have always been found in the north east corner of VIC.

I agree with mags i think rainfall changes would have more of an effect than tempreture, besides that reptiles found in northern Australia have to hide from the heat as it is, to me it would take more than a few points of a degree change to send them south.

[Sdaji]

Climate change is nothing new, it is a cycle which has been going on for billions of years. Many times before humans started playing with fire or even lost their tails, the world was warmer than it is now, and there has already been a mini ice age in "modern" times (within the last couple of thousand years). Species come and go, the climate changes, there are periods of mass exctinctions and periods of rapid speciation... this has been going on since millions of years before humans existed, even before mammals existed. Sometimes it is caused by novel mutations allowing one group to outcompete others, sometimes it's caused by meteorites... sit back and watch what happens this time, a new species has taken control of the planet, they'll make some massive changes and in a few million years it will be one of the more interesting little pieces of the planet's history, even though in a sense, nothing terribly unprecentended is likely to happen.

Incidentally, global warming is likely to allow some species to expand their range southward (or to higher altitudes), but is unlikely to remove many species from the north. Some extinctions may occur on the tops of mountains as predators and competitors are able to move in, but no new predators and competitors will suddenly come into existance in the north.

[GARTHNFAY]

If it keeps getting hotter, I am going to move south......don't know about the reptiles!!