It is the survival of the fittest and fastest.
According to a new study, animals can now change shape to avoid the threats of climate change.
A rapidly warming ecosystem is known to cause rapid and often detrimental changes in many animal species, such as opportunistic feeding, loss of fertility, and ultimately extinction.
Now, scientists are beginning to see how species adapt their bodies, sometimes from one generation to the next, to cope with the dizzying pace of human impact on the environment.
Ornithology researchers at Deakin University have observed in a new report, published in Trends in Ecology and Evolution on Tuesday, the “widespread test of shape change” between birds and mammals across Australia as a response to climate change and to their climate changes associated with warming, ”they suggest.
A theory called the “Allen rule” in evolutionary biology supports their findings, which are true that animal species in warm climates tend to grow larger body parts as an adaptation to help dissipate body heat.
Fossil records also suggested that the proportions of the body are transforming at faster rates than in earlier times, before our current warming period, which scientists have agreed has accelerated due to human activity. .
Researchers found that Australian parrot bills had risen from 4% to 10% since 1871, at a time when greenhouse gas emissions were barely rising. They also found that the ears, tails, legs, wings, beaks, and so on. of some Australian species had grown relatively, even since the 1950s.
“I think the most amazing aspect was that the evidence was so widespread, happening across a wide range of animals and across wide geographical scales,” said the study’s author and doctorate. noted student Sarah Ryding told Vice, from Alaska to Australia. “While that’s what we expected, it was amazing to see it happen in such different ways.”
Researchers also point out that these changes may not be caused solely by heat, as habitat destruction and food availability in an adaptive ecosystem may also play a role.
“While evolutionary change can be a slow process that takes thousands (or more) of years, we also know that strong selection can drive faster evolutionary change,” Ryding said. “The question is whether change is fast enough to keep track of the climate changes that are taking place.”