Nature study finds severe drought may increase climate risk for cactus species
A Nature study modeling 993 cactus species found that accounting for severe drought increased projected losses of suitable climatic area across emissions scenarios.
Researchers combined drought data, cactus occurrence records and species-distribution models to examine how climatic extremes could affect 993 cactus species. The study found that models including severe drought were more strongly supported than models using average climate alone in most cases.
Across the scenarios studied, the authors reported that adding severe drought increased the share of species projected to lose suitable climatic area. The results are projections, not observations of current extinctions.