Recent research shows even tropical species may be in trouble due to global warming. Scientists from UCLA and the University of Washington made alarming observations regarding rise in temperature which can harm the ecosystem and consequently cause trouble for us humans.

UCLA's Curtis Deutsch explained during the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences earlier today:

In the tropics, most of the organisms we have studied, from insects to amphibians and reptiles, are already living at their optimal physiological temperatures.

When warming starts, they do less well as they move toward the hottest end of their comfort range. Even a modest increase in temperature appears rather large to them and negatively impacts their population growth rates.

While more data pertaining to how warming affects insects is available, Deutsch stressed out that other tropical species face the same threat, saying "data on turtles, lizards, frogs and toads show patterns that are very similar to what we find for insects. They will do much worse in the tropics than in the high latitudes."

Global warming is expected to cause rapid decline in population of species in the tropics. This will undoubtedly harm the ecosystem, and Deutsch could only advise "the magnitude of the impact of global warming depends largely on what we do to slow it down."