Climate Impacts on Plants and Animals

How does climate change affect plants and animals? 

Everything in the natural world is connected. Animals eat plants, insects pollinate flowers, microbes break down dead things. Living things are also connected to the “non-living” parts of their environments – they use rocks for shelter, they depend on rain to bloom, they hibernate when it gets cold. Together, these living and non-living components make up an ecosystem.  

Climate helps shape ecosystems. Things like average temperatures, humidity, and rainfall determine where plants and animals live. If a region’s climate changes, the ecosystems change as well. 

Climate change has diverse impacts on plants, animals, and ecosystems. Explore some of these impacts below. 

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USGS Helps Preserve Ecosystems 

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Scientists at the USGS study how climate change affects the Nation’s wildlife, fish, plants, and ecosystems. We also help resource managers develop and implement strategies to allow plants and animals to survive and thrive in new conditions. We generate our science side-by-side with partners to ensure results and tools are directly applicable to on-the-ground conservation, restoration, and management decisions. USGS climate science is used to protect natural areas across the country, from local-scale conservation decisions to national park climate scenario planning.  

USGS science particularly focuses on helping resource managers, conservation agencies, and Indigenous peoples implement climate adaptation practices that intentionally help preserve species and landscapes under new climate conditions. For example, this could involve building sea walls to keep out rising sea levels, or planting drought-tolerant grasses in dry areas. Adapted landscapes may not look exactly the way they used to, but ideally the modifications allow them to continue to support the natural and human communities that rely on them. USGS scientists also use monitoring, field work, and modeling to understand how species naturally adapt to climate change, called adaptive capacity. 

USGS science helps to: 

• Understand climate change effects on fish, wildlife, plants, and ecosystems 

• Model species range shifts under potential future conditions 

• Identify species particularly vulnerable to climate change 

• Identify areas relatively buffered from climate change (“climate refugia”) that may help vulnerable species survive 

• Develop climate adaptation strategies and inform implementation for species and ecosystems  

• Support DOI partners in incorporating climate information into conservation and management decisions, such as Species Status Assessments (SSAs) or State Wildlife Action Plans (SWAPs) 

• Understand climate-induced shifts in phenology and identify potential management solutions 

• Protect ecosystem services important to communities 

• Measure species’ natural abilities to adapt to climate change (adaptive capacity) 

• Support climate adaptation efforts of Tribal Nations and other Indigenous peoples