TEHRAN — Species have sharply fell under the negative impacts of climate change either directly or indirectly, director general for natural history museums and genetic data storage division of the Department of Environment (DoE) has said.

Though climate change is an issue of importance, its connection with the biodiversity has not been much discussed so far, Asghar Mobaraki said, Mehr news agency reported on Saturday.

Temperature rise affects fetal gender

Mobaraki went on to explain that “a temperature of 28.5 centigrade would result in male green sea turtle and a temperature of 30.5 centigrade in female ones.”

In other words, a one-centigrade temperature change can affect fetal gender in these species, he said, warning, “if the temperature rise or fall merely one centigrade for an hour in one habitat we would only have male or female green sea turtles in that site.”

“If it keeps happening over a 10-year period in a habitat then you’ll see that in one habitat there are 2,000 female and 2 male turtles and the habitat will be totally ruined,” he lamented.

Unseasonable immigration

Mobaraki also noted that climate change can have some damaging impacts on the animals as it leads to unseasonable immigration.

“Normally when the temperature reaches 25 centigrade in [Iranian calendar] months of Esfand and Farvardin (February 20 to April 19) many of the species would immigrate,” he said, stating “if the temperature rises to 25 centigrade in the middle of the winter this will constitute some challenges for the animals.”

For instance, he said, the birds which are flying from north to south would face cold weather and can’t find any food and ultimately die.

Islands may disappear

As announced by International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) the sea levels may increase by one meter which means many islands can disappear into the seas, he pointed.

Mobaraki regretted “we may lose all of our islands to rising seas as the climate change hits and since they are habitats to some species we would lose them all as well.”

Recurrent environmental disasters

“It is projected that such unexpected disasters will happen more frequently and subsequently we don’t have much time to make up for the loss in the future,” he warned.

MQ/MG