Climate change is not only a human problem; animals have to adap t to it as well. Some" warm-blooded" animals are shapeshifting(变形) and getting larger legs, ears, and beaks to bettercontrol their body temperatures as the planet gets hotter. Bird researcher Sara Ryding of Deakin Universityin Australia describes these changes in a review.
"It's high time we recognized that animals also have to adapt to these changes, and this is occurringover a far shorter time than would have occurred through most of evolutionary time," says Ryding. "Theclimate change that we have created is putting a lot of pressure on them, and while some species willadapt, others will not."
Ryding notes that climate change is a complex phenomenon that's been occurring gradually, so it'sdifficult to determine just one cause of the shapeshifting. But these changes have been occurring acrosswide geographical regions and among a variety of species, so there is little in common apart from climatechange.
Strong shapeshifting has particularly been reported in birds. Several. species of Australian parrot haveshown, on average, a 4% to 10% increase in size since 1871, and this is positively associated with thesummer temperature each year. North American dark-eyed juncos, a type of small songbird, had a linkbetween increased size and short-term temperature extremes in cold environments. There have also beenreported changes in mammalian(哺乳动物) species. Researchers have reported tail length increases inwood mice."The increases in appendage(附肢) size we see so far are quite small ——less than 10% so the changes are unlikely to be immediately noticeable,"says Ryding."However, prominent(突起的)appendages such as ears are predicted to increase."
Next, Ryding intends to investigate shapeshifting in Australian birds by 3D scanning museum birdsamples from the past 100 years. Undoubtedly, it will give her team a better understanding of which birdsare changing appendage size due to climate change and why.
