"Natives are restless as temperatures rise"

In the Snowy Mountains, temperature increases have caused an alpine kookaburra to travel higher to prey on a threatened skink that has never before encountered a threat from the birds.

Since the 1950s, snow cover in the alps has declined by about one-third, giving swamp wallabies and red-necked wallabies access to higher ground and placing alpine herb fields at risk. Ten years ago, foxes feasted when the Snowy recorded its earliest thaw ever and population numbers of the endangered broad-toothed rat crashed.

These are just some of the adverse changes scientists have attributed to vacillating temperatures, outlined in a report, Australia's Biodiversity and Climate Change, recently delivered to Federal Environment Minister Peter Garrett.

"Climate change will affect every species differently but it will affect every species," said one author of the report, Macquarie University biology Professor Lesley Hughes...

http://www.smh.com.au/environment/natives-are-restless-as-temperatures-rise-20091226-lfmr.html