科学家在《自然—气候变化》上撰文称，在今后50年内，野生伊比利山猫将因为预计的气候变化而数量急剧下降并可能灭绝。该研究认为，目前的野生保护手段只是在推迟生物灭绝而已，应该采用一个能在避免物种灭绝时将气候变化的影响考虑在内的措施项目。
伊比利山猫（Lynx pardinus）是一种生活在欧洲南部地区的动物，“多亏”人类对其主要食物来源——兔子的过度狩猎，伊比利山猫的数量急剧减少。气候变化更是进一步威胁到山猫的生存，但在该山猫种类的拯救计划中，有关气候变化的预估影响一直被忽视。
Miguel Araújo等人从气候变化、猎物可获取性和管理干预三个方面研究伊比利山猫可能受到的综合影响。他们发现，气候变化会对伊比利山猫数量产生迅速、严重的消极影响，其程度远大于由山猫自身的环境适应能力和寻找那些食物来源丰富、适合繁殖的气候适宜地区的能力带来的好处。研究人员推测，尽管全球正在推动减轻温室气体排放，但上述情况仍旧会发生。他们认为重新仔细制定计划，并将气候变化影响、猎物丰富度和栖息地连通性考虑在内的话，能够避免山猫在本世纪灭绝的可能。
该项研究告诉了我们一点：为何在制定生物多样性保护措施时，猎物可获得性、气候变化以及其相互影响是如此重要。（生物谷 Bioon.com）
生物谷推荐的英文摘要
Nature Climate Change doi:10.1038/nclimate1954
Adapted conservation measures are required to save the Iberian lynx in a changing climate
D. A. Fordham,1 H. R. Akçakaya,2 B. W. Brook,1 A. Rodríguez,3 P. C. Alves,4, 5 E. Civantos,4, 6 M. Triviño,6, 7 M. J. Watts1, 8 & M. B. Araújo6, 9, 10
The Iberian lynx (Lynx pardinus) has suffered severe population declines in the twentieth century and is now on the brink of extinction1. Climate change could further threaten the survival of the species2, but its forecast effects are being neglected in recovery plans3, 4. Quantitative estimates of extinction risk under climate change have so far mostly relied on inferences from correlative projections of species’ habitat shifts5. Here we use ecological niche models coupled to metapopulation simulations with source–sink dynamics6, 7 to directly investigate the combined effects of climate change, prey availability and management intervention on the persistence of the Iberian lynx. Our approach is unique in that it explicitly models dynamic bi-trophic species interactions in a climate change setting. We show that anticipated climate change will rapidly and severely decrease lynx abundance and probably lead to its extinction in the wild within 50 years, even with strong global efforts to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions. In stark contrast, we also show that a carefully planned reintroduction programme, accounting for the effects of climate change, prey abundance and habitat connectivity, could avert extinction of the lynx this century. Our results demonstrate, for the first time, why considering prey availability, climate change and their interaction in models is important when designing policies to prevent future biodiversity loss.
