The findings, published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, suggest climate change was the cause of large-scale extinctions, said Peter Mayhew, an ecologist who worked on the study.

The study analysed fossil records and temperature changes over 500 million years, and found that three of the four biggest extinctions -- defined as when more than 50 percent of species disappeared -- occurred during periods of high temperatures.

"The relationship is true for the whole period in general," Mayhew said in a telephone interview. "If temperatures went up, then extinctions went up and biodiversity tended to be lower."

The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicts that average global temperatures are likely to rise by between 1.8 and 4 degrees Celsius (3.2 and 7.2 Fahrenheit) by the end of the century, partly as a result of greenhouse gas emissions.

The upper end of the forecast rise would heat the earth close to the temperatures of 250 million years ago, when 95 percent of all animal and plant species became extinct, Mayhew said.

Some of the past mass extinctions happened over a brief few hundred years, providing evidence that present day rapid temperature rises could have the same impact, Mayhew said.