Climate change threatens species’ genetic diversity too. Much has been talked about how climate change poses risk to ecosystems and individual species. But no one has analysed how global warming will affect the genetic diversity hidden within the species. DNA studies have revealed that traditional species contain a vast amount of “cryptic” diversity—such as different lineages or even species within species. “The loss of biodiversity expected in the course of global warming has been greatly underestimated in previous studies, which have only referred to species numbers,” says Steffen Pauls. For full text: http://www.downtoearth.org.in/content/ignored-threat