From the Queen Mary, University of London , there was shrinkage, of plankton no less. I’m sure it’s easy to extrapolate that right up to the top of the food chain.
How global warming could cause animals to shrink
The way in which global warming causes many of the world’s organisms to shrink has been revealed by new research from Queen Mary, University of London.
Almost all cold-blooded organisms are affected by a phenomenon known as the ‘temperature-size rule’, which describes how individuals of the same species reach a smaller adult size when reared at warmer temperatures. But until now, scientists have not fully understood how these size changes take place.
Writing in the journal The American Naturalist, Dr Andrew Hirst and colleagues from Queen Mary’s School of Biological and Chemical Sciences explore this unusual shrinking effect in more detail, and show conclusively how it occurs.
Funded by the Natural Environment Research Council, the study was carried out using data on marine planktonic copepods. These tiny crustaceans are the main animal plankton in the world’s oceans and are important grazers of smaller plankton and a food source for larger fish, birds and marine mammals.
By gathering together more than 40 years of research studying the effect of temperature on these organisms, their results show that growth rate (how fast mass is accumulated) and development rate (how fast an individual passes through its life stages) are consistently decoupled in a range of species, with development being more sensitive to temperature than growth.
Dr Hirst explains: “We’ve shown that growth and development increase at different rates as temperatures warm. The consequences are that at warmer temperatures a species grows faster but matures even faster still, resulting in them achieving a smaller adult size.
“Decoupling of these rates could have important consequences for individual species and ecosystems,” he added.
The team’s findings suggest that rates fundamental to all organisms (such as mortality, reproduction and feeding), may not change in synch with one another in a warming world. This could have profound implications for understanding how organisms work, and impact on entire food webs and the world’s ecosystems.
Although the team’s findings disagree with earlier assertions of many macro-ecologists, they clearly explain the smaller sizes associated with the ‘temperature-size rule’. They hope their work will help those investigating the potential impacts of climate change on the natural world.
>>Funded by the Natural Environment Research Council
Only funded because they put ‘Global Warming’ in the research application title, and so dully found the appropriate answer.
.
If only they hadn’t said “How [i]Global[/i] warming …”. It’s a perfectly reasonable piece of research – temperatures go up, copepods get smaller. Nothing whatever to do with anything global, though, they’ll do it in a bucket.
One of these days I’ll get the hang of this bloody HTML!
[Use angle brackets, not square brackets. ~dbs, mod.]
“We’ve shown that growth and development increase at different rates as temperatures warm. The consequences are that at warmer temperatures a species grows faster but matures even faster still, resulting in them achieving a smaller adult size”
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We’ve shown that cooler temperatures slow growth and maturity, putting these species in more danger of extinction….
They didn’t say it was a bad thing……
Higher temperatures allow them to recover and replace their numbers faster….resulting in more food/biomass…..
These guys sound like they are doing rotifer cultures. When you are trying to raise something on rotifers, and your species of rotifer is too big…..you raise the temperature so you get smaller rotifers…..
…everyone knows that already
You know, they may be right.
The molluscs during the warm pre-Cretaceous period were SO small.
http://www.uleth.ca/edu/currlab/handouts/geology/Ammonitelargest.jpg
.
And the dragonflies were pretty microscopic too.
http://www.windsofkansas.com/meganeuropsiskraus.jpg
.
Would not warmer temps = more abundant food = faster maturity = greater reproduction of the species…
be considered a benefit of warming?
The only thing we need to shrink is the funding for this junk…sheesh.
Dave Dodd says:
September 27, 2011 at 11:54 am
Any hunter knows that game animals become larger as their habitat moves further North! …and for a simple reason: larger mass is required to produce more heat to stay alive in colder temperatures! What a bunch of dumb bunnies! Did one of them ever walk outdoors?
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You are talking about warm blooded animals not cold blooded.
Also please explain African Elephants…..
Anton says:
September 27, 2011 at 12:33 pm
“It has been rumored by somebody somewhere that manmade global warming may cause breast, testicle, and penis enlargement on unprecedented scales. I know this for a fact, because I started the rumor. The AGW crowd can now use it for future articles, and cite me as a reference.”
Great…so now I’m going to get junk e-mails which say “Satisfy her by enlarging your GLOBAL WARMING. Robust and proven by models. Free trial.”
I thought nutrient content of food had a big role to play in physical size. As farming practices improved, so did human height and capability. I’m thinking if you compare us to ancient Mayans, they topped out at nearly four feet. Guess I need a few million for an archeology project!
In Vitro or In Vivo
My understanding from this extract is that the good chaps in London, down the road from the Royal Society collated data from our wonderful scientists in the field. This data may have in fact measured how sample mesh behaves with temperature or at which depth various organisms congregate at various temperatures. I am sure they will test their peer reviewed conclusions to eliminate what we know know as “Briffa-Mann-Jones Artifacts’.
Experience in hatcheries and aquaculture world-wide with growing copepods would no doubt expand on this paper with less influence from unknowns.
I would like to see copepod size distribution in the current environment. There may be something to this (or not). After all, whales prefer polar feeding grounds. On the other hand, as long as there is polar ice, I presume that polar oceans will be cold, even if the global temperature increases.
Read this: http://www.fmap.ca/ramweb/papers-total/temp_depend_copepod.pdf
Written before the recent AGW debate.
Does it apply to tree rings?
“Decoupling of these rates could have important consequences”
So, at our current temperature these rates are coupled at the most ideal relation, but as warming occurs these rates “decouple” (negative sounding term) instead of merely being coupled in a different relation (if ever coupled at all) that’s more efficient for the environment?
Really? I’m supposed to take this as serious science?
mark wagner says:
September 27, 2011 at 1:09 pm
Would not warmer temps = more abundant food = faster maturity = greater reproduction of the species…
be considered a benefit of warming?
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You mean like spring coming sooner, and winter later, giving them a longer growing season.
On Birds
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2009/08/12/will-all-animals-shrink-under-a-warmer-climate/
Here they talk about other shrinkages
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2009/08/12/will-all-animals-shrink-under-a-warmer-climate/
As reported by Wikipedia: Evolution
The black-backed jackal is an exceptionally stable and ancient form of canid, with many fossils dating as far back as the Pleistocene epoch.[6] Fossil jackals discovered in the Transvaal cave are roughly the same size as their descendents, though their nasal bones differ in size.[5] Although numerous fossils dating back to 2 million years ago have been found in Kenya, Tanzania, and South Africa,[5] they are entirely absent in Ethiopia, indicating that the species has never expanded past sub-saharan Africa.[7] Mitochondrial DNA analysis’ display a large sequence divergence in black-backed jackals from other jackal species, indicating they diverged 2.3–4.5 million years ago.
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From the Queen Mary, University of London
How global warming could cause animals to shrink
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I note the caveat “could.” The Jackal apparently ignored the temperature for a few million years, or (my caveat) global warming is a recent phenomenon brought about by Almore Gortry and his brethern at the UN/IPCC.
“How global warming could cause animals to shrink”
There seems to be plenty of evidence that it causes brains to shrink.
Why, then, are African elephants so large?
It must be cooling around here (UK). I’ve seen an enormous dragonfly in the last few days, much larger than usual for hereabouts.
The last comment should have had a sarc/
Loxodonta africana, you are charged that you have wilfully and persistently been of a bodily volume which is contrary to Chapter XVII, section 49a, sub-section iii of the Laws of CAGWaria.
How do you plead?