French birds are moving northwards in response to climate change, but not fast enough, scientists have found. Researchers found that 105 species of birds are lagging some 182km behind the increases in temperature.

Researchers are studing how climate change is prompting vegetation from southern Canada to creep into the tundra, possibly threatening the northern ecosystem. Areas that were normally occupied by herbs, for example, are becoming occupied by shrubs. The tree line is migrating northwards.

As the Arctic Ocean warms this century, shellfish, snails and other animals from the Pacific Ocean will resume an invasion of the northern Atlantic that was interrupted by cooling conditions three million years ago, predict Geerat Vermeij, professor of  geology at the University of California, Davis, and Peter Roopnarine at the California Academy of Sciences.

Milder winters caused by climate change are providing a boost to plant-damaging aphids, scientists have warned. Researchers revealed the familiar garden pest was flying earlier and in larger numbers because of warm conditions in winter and spring. As a result more aphids are on the wing and looking for food in spring and early summer when crops are at their most vulnerable.

The explosion of jellyfish populations, scientists say, reflects a combination of severe overfishing of natural predators, like tuna, sharks and swordfish; rising sea temperatures caused in part by global warming; and pollution that has depleted oxygen levels in coastal shallows.

A polar bear has been discovered on Iceland, which is hundreds of miles from the threatened species' natural habitat, a local photographer said.

Weeks after the controversial listing of polar bears as threatened species, new research graphically demonstrates how changes to polar ice can devastate local animals. The findings of a grim new study illustrate the direct, and often immediate, effects that  climate change can have on the physiology, behavior and survival of wild species.

Koalas are threatened by the rising level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere because it saps nutrients from the eucalyptus leaves they feed on, a researcher said.

Many tropical insects face extinction by the end of this century unless they adapt to the rising global temperatures predicted. Researchers said insects in the tropics were much more sensitive to temperature changes than those elsewhere. In contrast, higher latitudes could experience an insect population boom.

The fingerprints of man-made climate change are evident in seasonal timing changes for thousands of species on Earth. More than 30 scientists told The Associated Press how global warming is affecting plants and animals at springtime across the country, in nearly every state.

Twenty-foot pythons could soon be on the march--or on the slither--to new parts of North America, thanks to global warming. Climate modeling for the year 2100 which shows the possible climate range for pythons moving northward and swallowing up northernmost parts of Texas and Arkansas, the southeast half of Kansas, the southern half of Missouri and parts of southern Illinois and Indiana. Further east the big snakes could comfortably creep through Tennessee, Kentucky, Maryland, Delaware and southern New Jersey.

The tropical belt that girdles the Earth is expanding north and south, which could have dire consequences for large regions of the world where the climate is likely to become more arid or more stormy. Climate change is having a dramatic impact on the tropics by pushing their boundaries towards the poles at an unprecedented rate not foreseen by computer models.

mid-November. Narragansett Bay's natural timing is out of sync.

Scientists in Chile have blamed climate change for the sudden disappearance of a lake in the south of the country. Experts say melting glaciers put pressure on an ice wall that acted as a dam, causing it to give way.

Leaf-eating gypsy moth caterpillars are out in force in parts of the mid-Atlantic following a warm, dry spring  just the kind of weather that can make the insects thrive. Experts are predicting an especially bad year for trees, primarily oaks, which are the caterpillars' favorite snack. The moths will also munch on 475 types of foliage.

The hottest April on record in Britain has meant butterflies are hatching up to two months early. The charity Butterfly Conservation said butterflies had been emerging an average of half a day earlier each year from the mid-Seventies until last year. But Richard Fox, of the charity, said: "This year has blown all that away. We have had lots of species coming out two weeks earlier than last year, some a month or two months early. It's really a very dramatic situation."

Florida, with 1,200 miles of vulnerable coastline, is feeling real-time c climatic effects that are foreshadowing bigger consequences:  Sea levels are rising twice as fast as once predicted, eroding shorelines.  Higher temperatures are shifting tropical conditions farther north.  Oceans are more acidic.  Seas are hotter. Droughts may be increasing, while periods of intense rainfall are farther apart.

The world-famous Bharatpur bird sanctuary in western India is facing a shortage of birds because of severe water scarcity, officials say.

Migratory birds visiting the area in Rajasthan state are down to only about 100 compared to some 10,000 last year.

New NASA satellite data find that the vital base of the ocean food web shrinks when the world's seas get hotter. And that discovery has scientists worried about how much food marine life will have as global warming progresses. The data show a significant link between warmer water  and reduced production of phytoplankton in the world's oceans.

Across Britain, animals are on the march, moving northwards and going to higher ground as the climate warms, experts have told a major conference. Of some 300 species, about 80%  have extended the northern margin of their domains, with an average shift of 30-60km over the past 25 years.

"If we have another hot summer like last summer, the change in the Chesapeake Bay could be catastrophic. We are quite concerned that ... global warming is having rapid impacts in many areas of the world for animal and plant species, including the eelgrass here," said one researcher.

Research on toads, frogs, salamanders, fish, lizards, squirrels and plants are all showing evidence that some species are attempting to adapt to new conditions in a time frame of decades, not eons, say biologists.  One of the biggest reasons for all this evolution right now may be that human-induced changes to climate and landscapes give species few other options.

Scientists studying a fast-dwindling genus of colorful harlequin frogs in Central and South America are reporting  that global warming is combining with a spreading fungus to kill off many species. They implicate global warming because patterns of fungus outbreaks and extinctions in widely dispersed patches of habitat were synchronized in a way that could not be explained by chance.

After a thousand years, blue mussels -- helped along by warmer water temperatures -- have returned to high Arctic seas.

Their comeback could have serious implications for Arctic ecosystems and may be a sign of climate change, according to scientists.

Grass has become established in Antarctica for the first time, showing the continent is warming to temperatures unseen for 10,000 years.

Australian environmentalists are threatening to act as human shields to stop shooters from culling kangaroos, which have reached pest proportions in the national capital as a severe drought hits surrounding areas.

Whale Skate Island in the Northwest Hawaiian Islands was a tiny dot of land in the vast Pacific, about 10 to 15 acres in size. It was covered with vegetation, nesting seabirds, Hawaiian monk seals and turtles laying eggs. It no longer exists. "That island in the course of 20 years has completely disappeared" with rising sea levels, said  a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wildlife biologist. "It washed away."

Cod and other coldwater fish in the North Sea and North Atlantic could soon be replaced by subtropical marine species such as tuna, sharks and sea horses lured by warmer waters caused by climate change. One of Britain's leading marine scientists has warned that a minor change in temperature of the seas off the north-west coast of Scotland and the rest of the UK is having a dramatic effect on traditional marine life.

Loggerhead sea turtles along Florida's Atlantic coast are laying their eggs about 10 days earlier than they did 15 years ago, a change that researchers believe was caused by global warming.

The North Sea is undergoing "ecological meltdown" as a result of global warming, according to startling new research. Scientists say that they are witnessing "a collapse in the system", with devastating implications for fisheries and wildlife. Record sea temperatures are killing off the plankton on which all life in the sea depends, because they underpin the entire marine food chain. Fish stocks and sea bird populations have slumped."A regime shift has taken place and the whole ecology of the North Sea has changed quite dramatically", says Dr Chris Reid, the foundation's director. "We are seeing visual evidence of climate change on a large-scale ecosystem. We are likely to see even greater warming, with

Scientists believe the American pika, a mountain-dwelling relative of the rabbit, is heading for extinction and will be one of the first mammals to fall victim to climate change. As the climate heats up it is having to go to higher altitudes to find suitable habitats. A study reported in the US Journal of Mammalogy found that in pika populations at 25 places nearly 30% of the animals had gone. The locations are so remote that there seemed to be no other factor than climate change.

The seal population off Canada's Atlantic Coast is suffering because Ottawa continues to allow hunters to kill hundreds of thousands of the animals each year despite clear evidence the ice cover is rapidly thinning, activists said. Dr. David Lavigne, the IFAW's senior science advisor, said this was hurting harp and hooded seals, which give birth on the ice in late February and March and nurse their young for around 12 days.