Post by lucette on Aug 12, 2002 13:23:32 GMT -5
I recently read something about the global warming issue and why it is so dangerous for earth.
www.nature.com/nsu/010208/010208-8.html
"For the winter moth (Operophtera brumata), timing is everything. If it hatches too early, there are no oak leaves to eat. Too late, and the leaves are tough and indigestible. Now this delicate rhythm has become a casualty of climate change, a new study finds.
Similar effects on finely tuned ecological relationships -- such as that between bees and flowers -- will be a major consequence of global warming, believes Marcel Visser, of the Netherlands Institute of Ecology, co-author of the study1. "If people look for these effects, I think they'll find them everywhere," he says.
Over the past 25 years, springs have become warmer, but the number of cold days in winter has not changed. Because moths and oaks use temperature differently to time their life cycles, this change has knocked them out of synch, with the moths hatching to find the trees bare.
At worst, moths are emerging as much as three weeks before oaks. This is bad news for caterpillars, which can survive only two or three days without food. Had temperatures just become uniformly warmer, the moth-oak relationship might not have been disrupted.
Studies such as this one show that the pattern of climate change -- which is bound to vary a great deal in different parts of the world -- is just as important as the magnitude.
The moths' suffering will have a knock-on effect on the rest of the woodland ecosystem. A drop in the moth population means less food for insect-eating birds such as tits, and so less food for the sparrowhawks and weasels that eat them. Moth caterpillars also develop more quickly in warmer weather, giving birds less time to eat them.
"We're only beginning to scratch at the surface of the effects of climate change on individual species," says Humphrey Crick, a researcher at the British Trust for Ornithology who has found that many British bird species are laying their eggs earlier than they once did. "There are huge open questions concerning the links between species -- and no one's providing much funding for looking at them."
In an earlier study, Visser's group found that the laying dates of Dutch great tits -- timed to coincide with peak food availability -- had not moved forward, unlike that of their British counterparts2.
This suggests that entire webs of interdependent predators and prey could unravel, as evolution fails to keep pace with climate change.
"Climate changes of the same magnitude as those predicted have certainly occurred in the Earth's history, but probably never as quickly," says Lesley Hughes of Macquarie University, Sydney, who studies the effects of climate change on plant-insect interactions. "This means that evolutionary adaptation is unlikely for most species, and that the migration rates necessary to keep up with moving climate zones are also going to be difficult for many."
Imagine the flowers blooming earlier than the bees come out...that would mean a lot less food for the world population....
Edited to say: it's nice of course Siberia won't be as cold
/sarcasm
www.nature.com/nsu/010208/010208-8.html
"For the winter moth (Operophtera brumata), timing is everything. If it hatches too early, there are no oak leaves to eat. Too late, and the leaves are tough and indigestible. Now this delicate rhythm has become a casualty of climate change, a new study finds.
Similar effects on finely tuned ecological relationships -- such as that between bees and flowers -- will be a major consequence of global warming, believes Marcel Visser, of the Netherlands Institute of Ecology, co-author of the study1. "If people look for these effects, I think they'll find them everywhere," he says.
Over the past 25 years, springs have become warmer, but the number of cold days in winter has not changed. Because moths and oaks use temperature differently to time their life cycles, this change has knocked them out of synch, with the moths hatching to find the trees bare.
At worst, moths are emerging as much as three weeks before oaks. This is bad news for caterpillars, which can survive only two or three days without food. Had temperatures just become uniformly warmer, the moth-oak relationship might not have been disrupted.
Studies such as this one show that the pattern of climate change -- which is bound to vary a great deal in different parts of the world -- is just as important as the magnitude.
The moths' suffering will have a knock-on effect on the rest of the woodland ecosystem. A drop in the moth population means less food for insect-eating birds such as tits, and so less food for the sparrowhawks and weasels that eat them. Moth caterpillars also develop more quickly in warmer weather, giving birds less time to eat them.
"We're only beginning to scratch at the surface of the effects of climate change on individual species," says Humphrey Crick, a researcher at the British Trust for Ornithology who has found that many British bird species are laying their eggs earlier than they once did. "There are huge open questions concerning the links between species -- and no one's providing much funding for looking at them."
In an earlier study, Visser's group found that the laying dates of Dutch great tits -- timed to coincide with peak food availability -- had not moved forward, unlike that of their British counterparts2.
This suggests that entire webs of interdependent predators and prey could unravel, as evolution fails to keep pace with climate change.
"Climate changes of the same magnitude as those predicted have certainly occurred in the Earth's history, but probably never as quickly," says Lesley Hughes of Macquarie University, Sydney, who studies the effects of climate change on plant-insect interactions. "This means that evolutionary adaptation is unlikely for most species, and that the migration rates necessary to keep up with moving climate zones are also going to be difficult for many."
Imagine the flowers blooming earlier than the bees come out...that would mean a lot less food for the world population....
Edited to say: it's nice of course Siberia won't be as cold
/sarcasm