A video of this press release follows. Here’s a screen cap from it.
CLEMSON, S.C. — Wild salamanders living in some of North America’s best salamander habitat are getting smaller as their surroundings get warmer and drier, forcing them to burn more energy in a changing climate.
That’s the key finding of a new study co-authored by a Clemson University biologist and published Tuesday in the journal Global Change Biology that examined museum specimens caught in the Appalachian Mountains from 1957 to 2007 and wild salamanders measured at the same sites in 2011-2012.
The salamanders studied from 1980 onward were, on average, eight percent smaller than their counterparts from earlier decades. The changes were most marked in the Southern Appalachians and at low elevations, settings where detailed weather records showed the climate has warmed and dried out most.
“One of the stresses that warmer climates will impose on many organisms is warmer body temperatures,” said Michael W. Sears of the biological sciences department. “These warmer body temperatures cause animals to burn more energy while performing their normal activities. All else being equal, this means that there is less energy for growth.”
To find out how climate change affected the animals, Sears used a computer program to create an artificial salamander, which allowed him to estimate a typical salamander’s daily activity and the number of calories it burned.
Using detailed weather records for the study sites, Sears was able to simulate the minute-by-minute behavior of individual salamanders based on weather conditions at their home sites during their lifetimes. The simulation showed that modern salamanders were just as active as their ancestors had been.
“Ectothermic organisms, such as salamanders, cannot produce their own body heat,” Sears explained. “Their metabolism speeds up as temperatures rise, causing a salamander to burn seven to eight percent more energy in order to maintain the same activity as their forebears.”
The changing body size of salamanders is one of the largest and fastest rates of change ever recorded in any animal and the data recorded in this study reveals that it is clearly correlated with climate change, according to Karen R. Lips, associate professor at the University of Maryland’s (UMD) department of biology and co-author on the paper.
“We do not know if decreased body size is a genetic change or a sign that the animals are flexible enough to adjust to new conditions,” said Lips. “If these animals are adjusting, it gives us hope that some species are going to be able to keep up with climate change.”
The research team’s next step will be to compare the salamander species that are getting smaller to the ones that are disappearing from parts of their range. If they match, the team will be one step closer to understanding why salamanders are declining in a part of the world that once was a haven for them.
END
[Added, h/t to reader MarcH]
As opposed to less recent studies from 2005 that indicated the reverse is true!
http://www.nature.com/news/2005/050913/full/news050912-4.html
Fossil hunters in Yellowstone National Park have discovered an unusual way to record the effects of climate change. Specimens from the past 3,000 years suggest that salamanders have grown bigger as the climate has warmed, and may continue to change as temperatures rise and lakes dry up.
During development, tiger salamanders (Ambystoma tigrinum) can metamorphose and head for land rather than staying in the water. And warmer climes have made salamanders on land outgrow their water-based relatives, says Elizabeth Hadly of Stanford University in California. Hadley and her colleagues examined almost 3,000 salamander vertebrae from the park’s Lamar Cave in Wyoming.
Does global warming only affect “Wild salamanders living in some of North America”?
Temperatures over 65 million years
They really should include the cost to taxpayers for conducting this study. When you get money shelled out for measuring salamanders to back your political agenda… HOUSTON>>> WE HAVE A PROBLEM!!!
Cause/Effect is assumed in this study.
Salamanders are not affected by climate change in the Appalachian Mountains. They move up and down the mountains to find the climate they like best. Indeed, there are mountain islands of salamander species. They migrated up the mountains and become isolated.
Can I say shrinkgrow?
Science is wonderful; you can find an example to match any theory. The essence of the shrinking salamander theory is the little critters are more active in warmer temperatures and therefore expend more energy from the same food intake and therefore grow less. Left unstated is why the more active salamanders don’t spend that extra energy seeking more food, more mates, or any of the other activities which promote species survival. Maybe the warmer climate turns off the genes controlling survival behavior? Attention research whores: major new grant funding opportunity here; get those applications in pronto. Turn the crank on few new computer models, predict some new disasters and just imagine the publication possibilities.
And on the other side of the coin we have Titanoboa , an extinct species of super boa-constrictor — largest example found had a total length of around 12.8 m (42 ft) and weighed about 1,135 kg (2,500 lb). The key thing with this guy is its size required a much warmer climate than we have today:
(my comment: I would never dispute a peer-reviewed paper published in Nature, but I note that today the largest ectothermic animals live in tropical zones [snakes, crocodiles, lizards]; as you get further away from the tropics they either disappear or get smaller. I’ve never seen an alligator wandering around the Atlanta area but if you go about three hundred miles, or 480 km, further south, they become common water hazards on public golf courses (you are excused if you don’t play that one where it lies). It appears shedding extra metabolic heat is less of a problem for ectothermic species than not enough ambient warmth in the climate.).
I don’t think the risk of super snakes has been factored in the likely cost of continued global warming, so it could be even worser than we thought. After all, snakes this big can’t get by eating just survival-inhibited shrunken salamanders, so they’re going to come looking for human-sized meals. Even polar bears, especially those suffering malnutrition because ice-free Arctic seas don’t allow them to eat enough baby seals, will be on the menu for Titanaboa.
Heavens, are we scared yet?
Louis on March 25, 2014 at 9:13 pm
‘Did the study account for the Seinfeld fact that colder water causes more shrinkage?’
I woke up this morning, opened up WUWT, and read this story about teensy weensy salamanders, and the first thought that came to mind was that Seinfeld episode. And I’ll be damned if you beat me to it. I salute you!
Eight percent change sounds pretty small, especially considering the likely sampling errors they
experienced. I place no faith in any claimed need to explain such a change. Junk science, apparently contradicted by other studies.
“To find out how climate change affected the animals, Sears used a computer program to create an artificial salamander”!!!
I’m sure I’m not the only one to have commented on this! Gor’ blimey! I think Jim Steele should write a book on Biology the corrupted science. I think a history of this dysfunction would start with Ehrlich. I seem to recall what little biology I studied (geology) was descriptively detailed, informative and certainly unhyped, in the tradition of Darwin.
Stupid. Avg temps in the southern Appalachians aren’t warming — slight cooling IIRC.
All else being equal, this means that there is less energy for growth.”
Unless you are Australian.
Here, “Record’ warmth brings an obesity epidemic.
Must be the air conditioned escape capsules.
AKA Maccas…
George says: March 26, 2014 at 3:13 am
Looks like, for the most part, you do…
Well we won’t be talking about California and Texas needing rain now at least – both states are getting it good.
http://www.intelliweather.com/popup/nat_rad_popup.htm
Oh and could someone in South Carolina go out and collect some salamanders for a photo shoot? I don’t trust any biologist (except Jim Steele) anymore. It certainly hasn’t been warm recently in SC – as an engineer, I would estimate this is worse for salamanders than the warmth.
So what is the official name of the Murphy’s law variant that states ‘If the data (aka observational research) does not conform to the theory (aka model salamander) it must be discarded.”?
Well then, it’s really quite a simple problem to solve. Add some more cooling fans to Sears’ computer to chill down those artificial salamanders. They quickly will regain their former size and the world will be a better place. Catastrophe averted. Whew.
Can we please send these computer modelers out into the Everglades to find all the Burmese Pythons now living there because negligent humans released their beloved “pets” after they got too large to care for? They can come back when they’ve found all of them.
Anthony, check this out. At least there is one bit of good news in a warming world.
Is there an algorithm to correlate salamander size to Hiroshima bombs? I’m comfortable with Imperial to metric conversions, but these new units are driving me nuts.
On a serious note, studies like these have created the myth of the consensus. Researchers in virtually every field have been taught that the default assumption is a warmer climate , and of course their work is going to be based that premise. If they had been taught the opposite then we’d be reading about monster salamanders in a colder world. In neither case would it mean that they’ve critically evaluated the physics of a changing climate. This isn’t a consensus, it’s just a meaningless game of follow the leader.
Here is something for you salamander lovers.
Pachygrapsus says: March 26, 2014 at 6:29 am
Fixed.
A reality that appears to escape most CAGW fawning media. Fortunately, we much less sophisticated, intellectually challenged dullards have somehow managed to figure it out for ourselves.
Haaaa haaaaa. Shukman has finally lost the plot after the Met Office’s latest garbage. Shukman is being a useful idiot to plead indirectly for funds for the useless Met Office. Sad.
Rebuttal
http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2014/03/26/warm-cold-drywet-its-all-your-fault-anyway/
Silly. All Michael W. Sears had to do to discover the reason behind the shrinking size of salamanders was go out to the local sporting goods or bait & tackle store and apply for the state salamandering license. He would’ve seen, right there on the salamandering license, the new state reg requiring salamanders below a certain size to be unhooked and thrown back. Mystery solved.
Jay Dunnell says:
March 25, 2014 at 9:26 pm
I was taught in HS biology that cold-blooded creatures thrive in warmer environments not colder ones. In fact they are far more active in warmer environments.
==========
the largest lizard on earth, the komodo dragon, lives at sea level on the equator on a couple of hot, mostly dry islands in indonesia. outside the tropics lizards get smaller and smaller as the climate gets colder and colder.
At least they lose the atomic fire breathing thing in the process….
“Sears used a computer program to create an artificial salamander, which allowed him to estimate a typical salamander’s daily activity and the number of calories it burned.”
As far as I’m concerned, Sears lost all credibility right there. The word “artificial” coupled with the word “estimate” rules out the possibility of any definite conclusion being drawn from the study.