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Ecology & Environment
Pradeep Kumar

12/09/21 09:25 AM IST

Shapeshifters

Context    

Climate change affects not only humans but also animals

In news
  • In adapting to a warming planet, some warm-blooded animals are shapeshifting and getting larger beaks, legs and ears to better regulate their body temperatures (Trends in Ecology and Evolution).
  • Strong shapeshifting has particularly been reported in birds.
Details
  • Several species of Australian parrot have shown, on average, a 4%-10% increase in bill size since 1871.
  • This is positively correlated with the summer temperature each year.
  • North American dark-eyed juncos, a type of small songbird, had a link between increased bill size and short term temperature extremes in cold environments.
  • There have also been reported changes in mammalian species.
  • Researchers have reported tail length increases in wood mice and tail and leg size increases in masked shrews.
Shapeshifting
  • It does not mean that animals are coping with climate change and that all is fine.
  • 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,

Way forward
  • The researchers are next planning to investigate shapeshifting in Australian birds first-hand by 3Dscanning museum bird specimens from the past 100 years.
  • The increases in appendage size we see so far are quite small — less than 10% — so the changes are unlikely to be immediately noticeable.
  • However, prominent appendages such as ears are predicted to increase.
Source: The Hindu

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