Roesel’s bush-cricket is one of the many grasshoppers that might migrate to higher elevations once the climate in lower elevations has become unsuitable. (Photograph: Christian Roesti)
Roesel's bush-cricket is one of the many grasshoppers that might migrate to higher elevations once the climate in lower elevations has become unsuitable. (Photograph: Christian Roesti) - When it gets warmer, organisms rise higher from the lowlands. Researchers from ETH and WSL investigated what could happen to plant communities on alpine grasslands if grasshoppers from lower elevations settled there. The world is getting warmer and warmer - and many organisms native to lower latitudes or elevations are moving higher. However, novel organisms moving into a new habitat could disturb the ecological balance which has been established over a long period. Plants and herbivores are characterised by long-term co-evolution, shaping both their geographic distribution and the characteristics that they display in their occupied sites. At higher elevations, this is seen in insect herbivores being generally less abundant and plants in turn being less well defended against herbivores, as a result of lower energy and shorter growing seasons.
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