What are the effects of past and present climate change on species community compositions?

Many present-day islands (called landbridge islands) used to be connected to the mainland when ocean levels were lower. Instead of harboring the original, full set of mainland species, such islands are today occupied only by a small subset of the species that used to live there, as many of the original species went extinct over time. During an earlier lab project conducted with Drs. A.R. Ives (UW-Madison) and M. Kilpatrick (U-C Santa Cruz) we reconstructed the past communities of reptiles that used to live on a large set of Mediterranean islands 16,000 years ago and analyzed the patterns of species extinction. 

The research revealed that under the combined ravages of habitat loss and a warming climate, species went extinct in very specific, non-random ways. Heat-intolerant species succumbed first because their preferred cold-climate habitats vanished the fastest. Because humans today are altering the natural world in a similar fashion (by fragmenting natural habitats and changing the climate), this type of study can help predict the long-term implications of human activities on wild species. For example, it allows us to make testable predictions about the next species of reptile that is likely to go extinct next from each island (Foufopoulos, Kilpatrick & Ives, Amer. Natur. 2010).