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Climate change is already affecting wildlife in Britain, with traditional species under threat while those associated with warmer habitats, such as wasp spiders and spoonbill birds, thrive.
Conservationists have warned hazel dormice and bluebells could be under pressure because of warmer weather which will affect hibernating animals and bring trees into leaf earlier.
The Wildlife Trusts said action was needed to help plants and animals cope with rising temperatures as well as protect humans from the heightened risk from flooding and heatwaves.
Brian Eversham, an expert on climate change for the charity, said warmer temperatures could mean birds, animals and plants such as the spoonbill, wasp spider and loose-flowered orchid could become more abundant or colonise for the first time.
However, species such as the mountain hare may struggle as uplands shrink, he warned in the charity’s newsletter Natural World.
He said: “Some favourite species may decline or disappear: the Bluebell may be genetically unable to flower much earlier, and forest trees open their leaves much earlier, bluebells may disappear from the deep shade and survive only on the edges.
“Animals which hibernate, such as the native Dormouse and some butterflies and moths, may struggle to survive warmer and wetter winters.
“In future, wet woodlands may be the last home to shade-loving and moisture-demanding plants such as ferns in southern Britain.”
Tom Tew, chief scientist at the Government’s conservation body, Natural England, said wildlife was already feeling the effects of climate change.
Studies show oak trees are coming into leaf three weeks earlier than in the 1950s – causing insects to shift their emergence patterns and thus depriving birds of food to feed their chicks.
Newts are coming back into ponds in November, instead of March as they were in the 1970s, and swallows in Cornwall ”aren’t even bothering to migrate” south in winter, he said.
European birds and insects which can easily move could be the first to increase their range into this country, while those native species least able to move their ranges further north or higher into the uplands as temperatures rise are most at risk of declines or extinctions.
Dr Tew said the creation of salt marshes on the coast was a more cost-effective flood protection than concrete walls and provided habitat for wildlife.
He also called on planners to make the landscape more ”permeable”, allowing wildlife to move by providing more ”stepping stones” such as ponds and hedgerows.
Mr Eversham added: “About 80 per cent of UK species are southern and only about 20 per cent northern so if the landscape allows them to move the majority may do well. ‘And many which currently live in France or southern Europe may colonise for the first time.”
Wasp spiders live on the south coast of Britain but have been recorded as far north as Cambridge; they are mostly found around the Mediterranean Sea.
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