Animals and plants all over the planet are dealing with climate change, just like people. Researchers have been trying to learn more about the different impacts that a warmer earth will have on wildlife, some of which will be able to migrate or adapt to deal with the problem, while others may not have anywhere to go and could run out of time to change themselves so they can survive. Polar bears, for example, may not be able to simply move to a different area as more ice melts in the Arctic and changing patterns in their habitat lead to a diminished or contaminated food supply for these creatures. Other animals, like some different species of birds, might be able to find a new home or shift their biology in time to deal with climate change.
New research has found that some warm-blooded animals are already 'shapeshifting' in response to a hotter planet. Larger beaks, ears, and legs have begun to grow as animals are pressed to regulate their body temperature, or else. The findings have been outlined in Trends in Ecology and Evolution.
The bill size of several Australian parrot species has been increasing, from four to ten percent, since 1871, which correlates with the rise in temperature since then. Other research has shown that wood mice have gotten longer tails, and masked shrews are growing longer legs. The size increases are not huge, but other appendage sizes including ears are predicted to increase in the future. We may eventually be able to notice the shifts because they are so pronounced, the researchers noted.
“A lot of the time when climate change is discussed in mainstream media, people are asking ‘can humans overcome this' or ‘what technology can solve this?' It’s high time we recognized that animals also have to adapt to these changes, but this is occurring over a far shorter timescale than would have occurred through most of evolutionary time,” said corresponding study author Sara Ryding of Deakin University. “The climate change that we have created is heaping a whole lot of pressure on them, and while some species will adapt, others will not.”
Ryding added that changes have been happening across an array of species that live in different geographical regions, so while the exact cause (or combination of causes) of these changes is difficult to pinpoint, climate change is the only common factor.
Ryding and colleagues are planning to continue to learn more about shapeshifting in Australian birds. They want to identify the species that are changing more, and figure out why that is.
“Shapeshifting does not mean that animals are coping with climate change and that all is fine," said Ryding. “It just means they are evolving to survive it. But we’re not sure what the other ecological consequences of these changes are, or indeed that all species are capable of changing and surviving.”
Sources: Cell Press, Trends in Ecology & Evolution
