Climate Change Affecting Koalas

Posted on Wed May 14 2008

By: Praveen Sequeira in Climate Change

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Climate change has affected most species on earth and now the latest findings reveal, that the Koala, Australia's national icon is under threat due to the increase in temperature and level of carbon dioxide.

The increase in the level of carbon dioxide, affects the nutrients and anti nutrients in eucalypt leaves. Anti nutrients are basically things that are toxic in nature and affect the nutrients. The anti nutrients in the the eucalypts is built due to carbon. With the increase in the levels of carob, there is more production of anti nutrients than nutrients. Koalas feed on these eucalypts. They are basically finicky about the type of eucalypts that they feed on. This is so, because there are various species of eucalypts, and each of these have varying degrees of nutrients and anti nutrients, and thus vary from each other.

With the increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the levels of anti nutrients increase in the eucalypts. So what was considered a good habitat for the koala, is not looking too good. While the effect of carbon dioxide is not seem immediately on the eucalypts, its inadvertently affecting the koala population. This change is going to be more noticeable in a couple of years. It probably would have taken much longer, however considering the high levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, it's expected to be seen, much sooner than we expected, say researchers.

With these changes, the unsatisfied koalas may be forced to travel to seek more nutrient rich eucalypt, forcing them to travel by land. This in turn will prove to be dangerous and risky, as they could be hit by traveling vehicles or eaten by various predators.

Moreover eucalypts are extremely sensitive as well. High temperatures would see the sensitive species being damaged and destroyed.

In turn the species that survive, are not suitable for the koalas. So, essentially we're not going to see any forests disappearing, but what we are going to see is destruction of a nutritional habitat for the koalas.

When researchers were asked, if koalas were able to adapt to these changes in the levels of nutrients in the eucalypts, researchers felt that it may be to late, as the koalas don't have much time to adapt.

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