The ecological systems of the future will be dominated by small insectivorous animals with a short lifespan - the so-called "universals", capable of adapting even to the most unfavorable environment for life.
These are, according to the publication Nature Communications, rodents and other small mammals, small omnivorous birds, and so on.
But the so-called. “Specialists”, that is, less adaptable species, are likely to disappear as a result of climate change, which is already more than active. A particularly serious danger hangs over large "specialists" - that is, for example, over eagles or rhinos.
Researchers at the University of Southampton (UK), led by Felix Eigenbrot, analyzed fifteen and a half thousand species of living mammals and birds, and studied the key characteristics that determine the role of a particular species in the ecosystem.
In the next century, scientists predict that the average size of mammals will decrease by about twenty-five percent. This trend has existed for a long time - in the last thousand years, the size of mammals has been constantly decreasing.