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.
What about the other 9 species?
It can’t be a good thing to use Appalachian Plethodon Salmanders as bait.
http://www.amphibiaweb.org/cgi/amphib_query?where-genus=Desmognathus&where-species=monticola
Anthony, I loved the images. – a good 10 seconds of laughter. But are you getting crotchety over the unceasing absurdities that continue to be released as examples of science (paid for with taxpayer money)? You may have hurt some feelings.
Keep it up.
Remodeling modeled models! Oh the pain……….
http://www.reallibertymedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/godzilla-facepalm2.jpg
DirkH said, “The same models predict a wet Saudi Arabia”
– can you post a source for that? I’d love to use that in other comments…
Sad fate of the over-hunted, dammed up, polluted, incredible shrinking giant Chinese salamander:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_giant_salamander
Could a pic of Godzilla holding a human please be included in the lead post. Much like the ones of King Kong holding a beautiful woman ever so gently. Naked please.
Did global warming also shrink the apes and gorillas? Well we know there are more CAGW apes but are they smaller in size (physical size)? Their brains have obviously shrunk.
There were supposed to have been amphibians up to 30 feet long during the Carboniferous period – in warmer temps and higher CO2 than today.
Like others, I am wondering why they think the museum samples are representative and whether they bothered to examine the food supply, land-use impacts, shifts in geographical range, and whether or not the ever increasing number of curious-creature-catching-kids has anything to do with it?
Brian says:
March 26, 2014 at 8:52 am
“DirkH said, “The same models predict a wet Saudi Arabia”
– can you post a source for that? I’d love to use that in other comments…”
IPCC AR5:
http://change.nature.org/2013/09/27/latest-mega-report-on-climate-science-sets-alarm-for-action/
I used google images with the search “change in precipitation 2100”
Important: look for global maps; don’t look specifically for “Saudi”; because the reports on any given particular region are carefully weasel-worded and results selected to show only the negative outcomes. We are scientists after all and we know where the bread is buttered.
Other than climate change being responsible for the oceans smelling differently, this has got be one of the stupidest “scientific” claims about what climate change is doing to the environment.
Population samples of 3, comparison of museum species to wild caught, claims of being able to measure salamanders to within 10 microns, and a stunning lack of giving the variation within populations. Somebody really ought to have reviewed this paper before it was published. They have a total of 1 species (cinereus) that might fall out of the 95% CI if the population statistics were properly accounted for. Also, they rejected “obvious juveniles” thereby eliminating any observer bias. I am sorry, but doesn’t the observer decide what is an “obvious jouvenile?”
FFS…
Was not it salamanders that first waded out of the waters to walk on land ? I seem to recall a TV series “Dinosaurs!” that had a whole show dedicated to huge salamanders living in tropical conditions that ate anything that moved smaller than them….
george e. conant says:
March 26, 2014 at 10:49 am
The first land vertebrates did indeed resemble enormous salamanders, but modern amphibians are quite different from their Devonian & Carboniferous tetrapod ancestors. The large “amphibians” which lived during the days of the big dinosaurs were also still different from their “lissamphian” relatives.
Jay Dunnell says: March 25, 2014 at 9:26 pm
Alan Watt, Climate Denialist Level 7 says: March 26, 2014 at 6:02 am
My thought’s exactly. How does it feel to be more informed than an official in the “biological sciences department“.
Only question now is did the modeled salamander save ‘more’ / ‘less’ / or just 15% off his car insurance?
All this talk of animals under threat is just too one sided. Earth is more robust than we previously thought.
Contradictory studies that blame Global Warming for the results. The one that seems the best fit is the one that will be touted. The other will be forgotten. As long as the cause is Man.
I know I’ve said it before, but Jimbo you amaze me. You are consistently WUWT’s quickest and most prolific provider of citations and abstracts. Thanks.
I followed the link to the journal and did not find the article in either the April or March issue.
Biology can be considered hard science. One can dive into bioinformatics databases, study complex chains on chemical reactions, invent new drugs… And those einsteins took the ruler and went to the forest measuring 10 species length to cook yet another global warming paper.
I’m so F@ur momisugly#!*n glad Darwin didn’t have access to a computer. Has anyone made a study of the ever increasing size of Bull Shit piles, which seems to have a strong correlation with Climate change?
Good one Grumpsville, there is a film in that, “Snakes on Icebergs”
Wasn’t it a WARM climate when the dinosaurs reigned? Just think how much LARGER they would have been during an ice age????
Excuse me!…Helloooo… Pretty sure Godzilla was a reptile (mutant, fire breathing, possibly dinosaurian but drug its tail around and walked really funny), NOT a salamander… Here is a link to the salamander before global warming shrunk them: http://paleocave.sciencesortof.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/BB-Japanese-Giant-Salamander.jpg
Seriously, I didn’t realize they got this darn big! LOL
The larger salamanders (aka spring lizards) have all been eaten. They are excellent fish bait.
Check any one of the 15 or so bait shops within 10 miles of Clempson (that is how we say it here)