The mix of urban birds, bugs and other critters that humans have grown familiar with is due for a big shift because of climate change, a new study says.
To answer that, Filazzola, from the University of Toronto’s Centre for Urban Environments, conducted a simulation combining eight different climate models with an enormous data set that detailed sightings of 2,019 different species from 60 cities around North America. “When we get these slightly warmer temperatures and changes in precipitation patterns, a lot more species are coming in than they are leaving,” he said.
And many of those new arrivals are likely to be insects. Varieties of centipedes, butterflies, spiders and cockroaches are all likely to pop up in places they’ve never been before, Filazzola suggests. Filazzola cautions that the projections in his study won’t necessarily come to pass. Climate isn’t the only factor that influences where a species is able to live.