One of the most shrill arguments from alarmists is the idea that climate change will wipe out species because they can’t adapt. The claims run from polar bears to tortoises, to plants and coral. Yes, if we listen to these arguments, Nature so poorly equipped it’s creatures that they can’t adapt to a slightly warmer future.
Except when the last ice age ended, and it got warmer, and the saber-toothed cats got bigger because the prey got bigger…instead of disappearing due to “climate change”.
From the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County
La Brea Tar Pit fossil research shows climate change drove evolution of Ice Age predators
LOS ANGELES — Concerns about climate change and its impact on the world around us are growing daily. New scientific studies at the La Brea Tar Pits are probing the link between climate warming and the evolution of Ice Age predators, attempting to predict how animals will respond to climate change today.
The La Brea Tar Pits are famous for the amazing array of Ice Age fossils found there, such as ground sloths, mammoths, and predators like saber-toothed cats and powerful dire wolves. But the climate during the end of the Ice Age (50,000-11,000 years ago) was unstable, with rapid warming and cooling. New research reported here has documented the impact of this climate change on La Brea predators for the first time.
Two new studies published by research associates at of the Page Museum document significant change over time in the skulls of both dire wolves and saber-toothed cats. “Different tar pits at La Brea accumulated at different times,” said F. Robin O’Keefe of Marshall University, lead author on the dire wolf study (Palaeontologia Electronica, April 9, 2014). “When we compare fossils deposited at different times, we see big changes. We can actually watch evolution happening.”
After the end of the last Ice Age, La Brea dire wolves became smaller and more graceful, adapting to take smaller prey as glaciers receded and climate warmed. This rapidly changing climate drove change in saber-toothed cats as well. “Saber-toothed cats show a clear correlation between climate and shape. Cats living after the end of the Ice Age are larger, and adapted to taking larger prey,” said Julie Meachen of Des Moines University, lead author on the sabertooth study (Journal of Evolutionary Biology, 2014).
The two scientists discuss their work in a video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jK_DKSNbgR4&feature=youtu.be
“We can see animals adapting to a warming climate at La Brea,” said O’Keefe. “Then humans show up and all the big ones disappear. We haven’t been able to establish causality there yet. But we are working on it.”
The emerging links between climate change and evolution needs further study. There are many unanswered questions; such as why predators change in the ways that they do, the importance of factors other than climate, and whether the arrival of humans played a role in the mass extinction at the end of the Ice Age. “There is much work to be done on the specimens from the tar pits. We are working actively to bring together the researchers and resources needed to expand on these discoveries,” says John Harris, chief curator at the Page Museum. “Climate change is a pressing issue for all of us, and we must take advantage of what Rancho La Brea can teach us about how ecosystems react to it.”
O’Keefe, F. R., W. J. Binder, S. R. Frost, R. W. Sadleir, and B. Van Valkenburgh. 2014. Cranial morphometrics of the dire wolf, Canis dirus, at Rancho La Brea: temporal variability and its links to nutrient stress and climate. Palaeontologia Electronica.
Palaeontologia Electronica was the first peer-reviewed online paleontology journal in the world and has been in publication for 17 years. On April 9, visit palaeo-electronica.org/content/2014/723-canis-dirus-craniometrics
Meachen, J. A., F. R. O’Keefe, and R. W. Sadleir. 2014. Evolution in the sabre-tooth cat, Smilodon fatalis, in response to Pleistocene climate change. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 27: 714-723. Visit http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jeb.12340/abstract
About the Natural History Family of Museums
The Natural History Family of Museums includes the NHM, the Page Museum at the La Brea Tar Pits (Hancock Park/Mid-Wilshire), and the William S. Hart Park and Museum (Newhall, California). The Family of Museums serves more than one million families and visitors annually, and is a national leader in research, exhibitions and education.
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Janice Moore says:
April 10, 2014 at 5:52 pm
Cutting & pasting from professional liars is no substitute for actually trying to learn & understand. Uncritically accepting the odious “work” of the Discovery Institute, Answers in Genesis & their partners in mendacity is farther removed from a genuine search for truth than buying into Mann on the “pause”.
I know I can have no affect on your faith in these paid liars, but for the record let me point out that all you posted is a pack of lies, as is your assertion that speciation has never been observed. As is your disingenuous claim not to be a creationist. As the Dover trial showed, ID is nothing but creationism. If you’re honestly not a creationist, then please provide your explanation for the origin of species, if it’s not evolution or creation.
You asserted:
“1. You at 10:47am: “Adaptation is an evolutionary process. It might or might not eventually produce a new species. ”
“Answer: Adaptation has only been observed to drive change with-IN species.”
As you should know by now, this is false as false can be. Repeating the false claims of ID liars doesn’t make it true. If somehow you didn’t know it before, then read the many instances provided you in the comments above. Just because the truth is inconvenient to your cult’s beliefs, doesn’t make it not true.
2. Polyploidy is not “secondary speciation”. That is a totally bogus term invented by the professional liars. There is such a thing as secondary evolution in biology, but it has nothing to do with this mendacious “concept”, if I can dignify it with that term.
Polyploidy produces new species, period. No ifs, ands, buts or “secondaries”. Reproductive isolation means they daughter species is a new species. It happens all the time.
Your assertion that it has only been observed in plants is another lie. I say lie, because nothing could have been easier for you to have checked this lie by the professional liars in whom you’ve so naively placed so much trust. Speciation by polyploidy, which is very common in plants, is less so in animals, but still happens, even among vertebrates such as fish & amphibians.
http://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/polyploidy-1552814
It’s also not true that speciation by polyploidy doesn’t support speciation by natural selection, because the new polyploid species that survive & reproduce successfully are obviously subject to selective pressure, just like all species.
The out of context quotation from Dr. Futuyma is a typical professional ID liar ploy. They do the same thing with other issues in evolutionary theory, such as “punctuated equilibrium” or those who argue that stochastic processes are more important in speciation than old-fashioned (“directional”, not “directed” into which you’ll see it shamelessly warped) natural selection, trying to con the scientifically illiterate into falling for their line that the fact of evolution is in doubt among biologists, not just theoretical issues. Futuyma is an old school morphologist, sometimes at odds with the modern school of genetic species classification. He might disagree with that characterization, but read this & form your own opinion:
http://bioscience.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2013/12/05/biosci.bit009.short?rss=1
There are differing schools of thought in evolutionary theory, just as with the theory of gravitation, the Big Bang theory & most other generally accepted scientific theories. It doesn’t mean that evolution, gravitation & the Big Bang don’t or didn’t happen.
Much as I respect Futuyma’s work within his area of expertise, he’s simply wrong that polyploidy doesn’t produce genera or higher categories of plants. It has even been observed to occur across genera. I must admit however that defining genera is even dicier than species. Catherine posted a link on the numerous species & genera of polyploid plants, which somehow you must have missed.
“Primary” vs “secondary” speciation is a blatant lie. The branching tree is evident throughout the world of life, nowhere more so than on the genetic level at which we’re now able to study it. That “evolution’s smoking gun has never been found” is yet another outrageous lie by the Discovery Institute. The smoke is all around us, all the time.
“3. Your “human evolution” leg-bone point (10:47): “…Our upright stance probably owes to a single gross chromosomal mutation… .”
Answer: Your theorizing has ENORMOUS gaps in it. You have fallen FAR short of showing a sufficiently detailed chain of causation from asserted driver to result. Pure speculation.”
Had you bothered to conduct the most rudimentary Internet search, you’d have found this assertion false as well. It’s not speculation but a fact that the fusion of two small chromosomes into the human #2 is associated with upright walking because the BMPR2 gene is located on the long arm of this chromosome. That gene is for bone morphogenetic protein receptor, type II (serine/threonine kinase). So it might be speculative that the evolution of this presently uniquely human chromosome is associated with hominid posture & gait, it’s not pure speculation but an hypothesis for which a strong case can be made. No ENORMOUS gaps, but a reasonable hypothesis
Please don’t let your religious beliefs get in the way of searching for the truth.
4. Nothing in your irrelevant cut & paste about bacterial evolution is to Catherine’s point about the evolution of nylon metabolism in different bacterial genera through simple mutations, which are facts observed in the wild & in the lab. Nor about the founder’s principle, experimental results on which she provided a link or citation. Maybe you don’t consider a bacterium which evolves from eating sugar to eating nylon as a new species, but that says more about you than about evolution.
Same goes for flies which evolve from drinking fruit juices to drinking blood.
I hope in future you’ll think twice about reasserting the falsehood that the evolution of new species has never been observed. It’s visible all the time live & in color all around us, not just on remote islands, in rocks, our bodies & genes.
Yours, if you really are interested in truth rather than cleverly packaged lies. I also doubt very much that Catherine would be horrified by your prayers. Too bad she’s not here to tell you so herself. Alan’s probably right about her being stressed out. Blog commenting is maybe an activity for the retired or slackers, except for energetic genuine experts willing to share the results of their work with others, like Drs. Svalgaard & Brown.
From those same tar pits, evidence of carbon starvation in juniper trees:
http://www.pnas.org/content/102/3/690.full
The title is “Carbon starvation in glacial trees recovered from the La Brea tar pits, southern California”
The paper is dated 2004, before such inconvenient truths were verbotten in the peer-reviewed journals. Anthony, this paper also predates WUWT and it may be worth making a post from it. The carbon dioxide level of the atmosphere remains dangerously low. The plants we rely upon in our diet evolved when CO2 levels were four times what they are now. The plants are still gasping for breath. I feel for them.
Janice I love your posts? O/T I have just been told on the comments section of a local paper, that I am a moron, half twit, etc., because I have just connected to the National Broadband Network, that’s optic fibre instead of copper wire. I was on Wireless Network 3, got terrific reception but my server was not going ahead with NBN. So I went back to Telstra. It says on my computer, Wireless Network 3 and a Telstra number. These jokers are telling me There’s no such thing. Yet – I know that not all receivers are directly connected to cable, but can pick up NBN via wireless. You can’t win my friend. Just as well I am English, as it is said, you can’t insult the English, it bounces of their backs like water off a ducks back. ( Probably a national inbuilt arrogance, who cares).
Just a minor correction …. The authors say “Then humans show up and all the big ones disappear. We haven’t been able to establish causality there yet. But we are working on it.” What they meant to say is “Then native americans show up who live in complete harmony with nature and by some weird coincidence unrelated to their benign presence here all the big ones disappear.” Maybe “the big ones disappear(ed)” in anticipation of the arrival of Europeans.
Thank you, Bush Bunny, SO MUCH! Thanks for taking the time to write that.
I enjoy you, too. You are never petty or mean… and you say what you mean.
#(:))
Hoping all is well out there on “the ranch” — dog, son, etc… . (oh, and your broadband connectivity, arrrrrrgh — COMPUTERS!!!!! (heh)).
– I’m assuming the “?” was a typo — (smile)
Take care,
Janice
P.S. I’m 3/4 English. So THAT is why I’m going to ignore a certain snarler and slanderer. Thanks for the insight into how I tick (re: who I let tick me off).
#(:))
No it was coming from the ice age to an interglacial. It was the browsers that died off in Australia.
Obviously humans in North America would have had some impact, but evidence shows that this was minimal. Anyway, your buffalo was bigger once, but they grew smaller. And before horses,
Native Indians found it hard to catch them.
milodonharlani: Chill out psycho!
milodonharlani says:
April 10, 2014 at 8:05 pm
_________________
Many thanks for your input. I’m also ignorant of various schools of thought and oppositional points of view, as the ID which you mention. Catherine mentioned the Founder’s principle and the two of you have provided more links than I’ve absorbed, or read yet, but I have developed a question, for which I must seek the answer. Surely many others have described and discussed the phenomenon which I mentioned at: April 10, 2014 at 1:15 pmspecifically, we see speciation tailored to specific circumstance, which seems beyond random mutation events. In time, I hope to discover what current hypotheses attempt to explain the phenomenon.
I came down hard on Catherine (too hard, but what fun,) and if she’s 1/2 as smart as I think she is, she’ll get the point(s).
You pegged my modus as a blog commenter, being somewhat retired, but I have much to do, especially now that a whole new world of interest and inquiry is now visible, with my nose lifted from the grindstone.
It was the browsers that died off in Australia.
I was always of the view that IE and Mozilla were bad.
Janice, it was a typo. Sorry. Oh, evolutionary phases and adjustments, bit of knowledge here, though Willis I am not giving references, I am not completing an university essay, post graduate.
If you look at the various families including Homo sapiens, the seven families has not changed.
It’s the genus that have and species. But the late Prof Mike Morwood and his team on Flores, threw a cat amongst the pigeons in the palaeoanthropology discipline, when they discovered a very small biped that they called The Hobbit on the island. They used tools too. So could be included in the primate family and were given the prefix Homo. Did that get a sound criticism in the press and on TV. A new genus and should have been extinct 1 million years ago. They died out only about 18,000 years ago from a volcanic eruption and appear to have been isolated so long, that the little elephants grew smaller too. But he was proven right anyway, and he taught me too. All species can adapt, however, those that are too specialised risk extinction if their environment changes for various reasons and they can’t adapt or move away to a more feasible environment, and keep breeding.
Humans propose, nature deposes. Humans are not specialised, we don’t depend on hunter and gathering or fishing to keep alive, being vegetable and meat eaters our brains have adapted too. What will kill us now killed those years ago. Earthquakes, floods, hurricanes and cyclones, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, disease and famine. Asteroid and meteor impacts, And wars.
@richard Sharpe — LOL. #(:))
****************************************
Thanks, Bush Bunny. I was pretty sure, but, thanks. #(:))
Richard ha ha. Browsers were megafauna that ate trees, and didn’t graze. All I can remember about genetic mutation was that an established genetic pool in a region is stronger and more resilient to its environment than one that comes into their region. If they are of the same species, and can interbreed, there is a mutation of possibly a newer genus. Dogs are a good example. But nature has allowed this, this is why we can’t interbreed with other primates. Who would want too? The new mutated species has adapted and this happens to trees as well. In our New England National park, the Antarctic beech in the temperate rain forest, is not deciduous any more. It dominates the gum trees, who are not deciduous either. And bush fires do not penetrate rain forests areas.
@bushbunny
Thanks for that. I was wondering the same thing Richard was. 😉
wws i do not think you understand what you are talking about, the Bakken oil is anywhere from eight thousand feet down to twelve thousand feet down, the North dakota oil field has never been or ever will be a shallow oil field, two mile of pipe must be held up by the oil rig. Such rigs are big and expensive. North Dakota has been and will remain on of the most challenging oil fields in the world, the temperature swing is over a hundred and fifty degree difference, I have been 107 heat and – 50 cold there, average wind speed it one of the highest in the nation. My comment to people is if you want to fish lake Sakakawea you better be prepared to fish in a twenty five mile and hour wind. Average wind speed for the day of thirty mile an hour is not unusual, I once clocked a can blowing a snow covered ditch at 45 mile and hour. I had to keep my garbage can tied up so it would not blow away filled or unfilled. I no longer live in North Dakota, Arizona weather is a lot easier to take, even with triple digit temperatures four month out of the year.
bushbunny says (April 10, 2014 at 9:36 pm): “But nature has allowed this, this is why we can’t interbreed with other primates. Who would want too?”
Apparently it’s been tried:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanzee
Also, it’s suggested that interbreeding may have occurred between proto-humans and proto-chimps:
“A new comparison of the human and chimp genomes suggests that after the two lineages separated, they may have begun interbreeding… A principal finding is that the X chromosomes of humans and chimps appear to have diverged about 1.2 million years more recently than the other chromosomes.”
Okaaaaay. But I’m still not participating in “Take Your Chimp to Work Day”. 🙂
“””””…..Philip Nolan says:
April 10, 2014 at 8:38 pm
Just a minor correction …. The authors say “Then humans show up and all the big ones disappear. We haven’t been able to establish causality there yet. But we are working on it.” What they meant to say is “Then native Americans show up who live in complete harmony with nature and by some weird coincidence unrelated to their benign presence here all the big ones disappear.” Maybe “the big ones disappear(ed)” in anticipation of the arrival of Europeans……”””””
It wasn’t the Europeans that arrived; it was some ‘ istanis, either uzbekistanis or Tajikistanis; or one of those. They were the ancestors of all “native Americans, north, south and central. Far as I know anyway. I’m thinking it was the Uzbeks, who gave us that wonderful humanist Tamerlane, or Timor if you prefer, but sometime after they gave us native Americans; who evidently first danced with the graceful Dire wolves.
Izzat dire as in fire, or some non phonetic jingle like deeray or some such.
Who called them dire wolves; as if wolf isn’t dire enough ??
{WARNING: MUTE IF YOU HATE TO HEAR GOD MENTIONED OR ALLUDED TO IN A SONG)}
Feeling a great need to bring some sweetness and light to this thread, here is:
… a little prairie beauty and poetry-in-music from me to you… yes, even you, “milodonharlani.”
“Calling Out Your Name” — Rich Mullins
With agape, even now, milodonharlani, even now.
“Then humans show up and all the big ones disappear”
The McDonalds effect, people like bigger hamburgers.
This also explains the related issue of why the sabre tooths went extinct, humans took over their Big Mac food supply, they just couldn’t cut it on French fries and happy meals.
The paper that makes the claim about 1.2 million years more recently …
http://genepath.med.harvard.edu/~reich/Patterson%20et%20al.2.pdf
When the Monarch butterflies were migrating through my garden last year, they were accompanied by a number of butterflies which shared some, but not all of the Monarch’s
appearance, but were different enough to look like different types altogether. I took pics and looked ’em up and they were all varieties of Monarch, not different species.
This brings up a question, for me. I have many Robins and Blue Jay visitors around my place and they all look the same. There are sometimes subtle differences by which one can tell individuals apart, but still, all Robins are the same. The Blue Jays haven’t undergone some genetic mutation which allows them to be perfectly viable, but with maybe an extra black and white stripe on their tails, or some other thing. If evolution of species is just random genetic events, why aren’t there populations of something derived from and close to Blue Jays, but which are fully as capable of species survival as the Jays which they originated from? What about whatever species the Robin derived from? Where are they? Why have we seen some birds become adapted specifically to be able to hover at bird feeders, but yet we don’t see similar instances of the same species with different, but equally viable adaptations for no discernible reason at all?
Perhaps it’s already known why a specific modification to a creature’s “blueprint and production” happens between generations in a manner that creates exactly what was needed to take advantage of a local circumstance. I ‘m so clueless, it’s almost painful.
Joined this thread late. Back to the ‘tar pits’ topic? Folks might be interested in ‘tar hills’ below the coastal waters of California. They are natural tar seeps, similar to La Brea, but just off the California coasts.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/04/100425151143.htm
Ancient asphalt domes discovered off California coast
Date:April 26, 2010
Source:Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
About 35,000 years ago, a series of apparent undersea volcanoes deposited massive flows of petroleum 10 miles offshore. The deposits hardened into domes that were discovered recently by scientists from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and UC Santa Barbara (UCSB).
Hi, Mac,
I sure could use a “Hi, Sweet Pea” right about now.
Hope all is well with you.
Good point to refute the Envirowackos who use that natural oil seepage to stop offshore drilling.
Janice
“””””…..Janice Moore says:
April 10, 2014 at 7:51 pm
Dear Alan,
Thank you for such a thoughtful and kind reply (made even more welcome after Mr. Smith’s subtle but definite disrespect just above for my comments — yes, I noticed — and yes, it was disappointing, but, oh, well). I asked him how his sister was and said I was praying for her about a week ago. He just ignored me. …..””””‘
Well Janice, I just completed a total reading of this entire thread to find your “subtle but definite disrespect just above for your comments.”
I can find NO reference to any of YOUR posts, in any of MY posts, in this entire thread.
So whence the “disrespect” ??
As for your query about my sister, it was NOT ignored; it was much appreciated; and I thought long and hard about responding; but did not want to bore the WUWT readers, over something personal.
Her condition is horrific; but very greatly improved, since I went over there, and since I returned; She will never be well again. Yes maybe your prayer did help. Something did, and it surely wasn’t me being there.
My internet security continues to try to disconnect me from WUWT; I smell a rat (antiwuwt)
Thank for the devotional, Janice!
Looks like it was a bit ‘peppery’ up thread! Seems like a lot of that ill tempered ‘tude about lately.
Keep smilin’ Kiddoo!
Mac
Dear Mr. Smith,
Thank you for clarifying that. Given the context, I assumed wrongly that your advocating the one I attempted to refute was silent disapproval and disrespect for all my arguments. I’ll try not to do that again.
I’m so sorry about your sister. I’m glad that she is better. I’ll keep up the prayers for her very hard situation (and, even now, for healing). YOU DID HELP HER. When we suffer, we need healing, but we also need HELP TO COPE WITH IT WHILE IT LASTS. You gave your sister love and that gave her strength and courage. This, in turn, revitalized her HOPE, the most important thing of all when one is going through such a hard time.
Don’t worry about the other readers when the thread gets down this far… they just skip over stuff like this (I think 75% of them auto-skip over all “Janice Moore says” no matter what — smile).
Re: your security firewall software, it may be some of the ads that are displayed automatically on WUWT. It may not trust them. Hope it isn’t any of the videos I’ve posted! Youtube is supposed to be pretty safe for viewing, though, and I only post youtube vids.
I hope that all is well with your son in college, too. (he is prayed for, too, you know)
And with you. Are you working on any electronic and or music projects these days?
So glad we got to “talk!” Take care.
Your Ally for Truth in Science and WUWT pal,
Janice
Thanks, Mac!
#(:))