Extreme heat, combined with land use change, may push nearly 8,000 species to extinction

Published on : 10 Dec 2025, 11:54 am Listen to this article

Extreme heat due to climate change and land use change threatens to wipe out nearly 8,000 species of vertebrates including amphibians, birds, mammals and reptiles, a new study has found.

The paper , published in the journal Global Change Biology , assessed how future extreme heat events under different scenarios of thermal limits can potentially impact almost 30,000 species.

Under the worst-case scenario, 8,000 species are estimated to face unsuitable conditions across 52 per cent of their range.

“By the end of the century, up to 7,895 species are expected to face extreme heat events and/or unsuitable land use changes across their entire range, and thus potentially go globally extinct,” the analysis said.

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