[Animals] "They are evolving to survive": animals change shape due to climate change

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Some warm-blooded animals are changing shape and getting larger beaks, legs, and ears to better regulate their body temperature as the planet warms.

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In research published in Trends in Ecology and Evolution, bird researcher Sara Ryding, from the University of Deakin (Australia), comments that “many times, when we talk about climate change in the media, people wonder ' Can humans overcome this? 'Or' What technology can solve this? ' It's about time we recognized that animals have to adapt to these changes too, but this is happening on a much shorter time scale than it would have been for most of evolutionary time. The climate change we have created is putting great pressure on them, and while some species will adapt, others will not, ”she adds.

Ryding points out that climate change is a complex and multifaceted phenomenon that has been taking place progressively, so it is difficult to pinpoint a single cause of the change in shape. But these changes have occurred over wide geographic regions and across a wide variety of species, so there is little in common other than climate change.

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The most marked changes in shape have been observed above all in birds. Several species of Australian parrots have shown, on average, a 4% to 10% increase in beak size since 1871, and this is positively correlated with summer temperature each year.

North American dark-eyed junks, a type of small songbird, had a relationship between increased beak size and short-term extreme temperatures in cold environments. Changes have also been recorded in mammalian species: researchers have reported increased tail length in forest mice and increased tail and leg size in masked shrews.

 

Link: https://elcomercio.pe/tecnologia/ciencias/estan-evolucionando-para-sobrevivir-los-animales-cambian-de-forma-debido-al-cambio-climatico-noticia/