Guest essay by Eric Worrall
PLOS ONE has published a study which suggests two thirds of rabbit species will be severely affected by climate change. The authors of the study think climate change will force rabbits to migrate towards the poles, or to higher altitudes, and that some species will suffer significant range declines.
Climate change during the past five decades has impacted significantly on natural ecosystems, and the rate of current climate change is of great concern among conservation biologists. Species Distribution Models (SDMs) have been used widely to project changes in species’ bioclimatic envelopes under future climate scenarios. Here, we aimed to advance this technique by assessing future changes in the bioclimatic envelopes of an entire mammalian order, the Lagomorpha, using a novel framework for model validation based jointly on subjective expert evaluation and objective model evaluation statistics. SDMs were built using climatic, topographical, and habitat variables for all 87 lagomorph species under past and current climate scenarios. Expert evaluation and Kappa values were used to validate past and current models and only those deemed ‘modellable’ within our framework were projected under future climate scenarios (58 species).
Phylogenetically-controlled regressions were used to test whether species traits correlated with predicted responses to climate change. Climate change is likely to impact more than two-thirds of lagomorph species, with leporids (rabbits, hares, and jackrabbits) likely to undertake poleward shifts with little overall change in range extent, whilst pikas are likely to show extreme shifts to higher altitudes associated with marked range declines, including the likely extinction of Kozlov’s Pika (Ochotona koslowi). Smaller-bodied species were more likely to exhibit range contractions and elevational increases, but showing little poleward movement, and fecund species were more likely to shift latitudinally and elevationally. Our results suggest that species traits may be important indicators of future climate change and we believe multi-species approaches, as demonstrated here, are likely to lead to more effective mitigation measures and conservation management. We strongly advocate studies minimising data gaps in our knowledge of the Order, specifically collecting more specimens for biodiversity archives and targeting data deficient geographic regions.
More information: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0122267
The biggest issue I have with this study is, it doesn’t appear to make any serious allowance for adaption.
The main study includes an acknowledgement that adaptability might play a role – … If species can broaden their occupied bioclimatic niche through trait plasticity, for example, altering their diel patterns of activity, then they may be less susceptible to future change ….
However, it is futile, in my opinion, to attempt to draw conclusions about future range, from a model which appears to treat highly adaptable species as static entities. Even if the global climate changes as radically as alarmists predict, rabbits which are subject to environmental stress won’t stay within their current ecological niches, they will adapt to take advantage of new opportunities.
In less than a century, rabbits introduced from temperate England infested the blistering hot Australian outback, to the point that they became a major economic threat to Australian farmers.
The introduced rabbits, in just a few years, adapted from an average annual temperature of around 40F (10c), to an average annual temperature of around 70F+ (20c+).
Even biological warfare has failed to contain the rabbit plague. Australia runs one of the most advanced biological warfare laboratories in the world, dedicated to finding new rabbit specific plagues, to control numbers. The research is ongoing, because nothing works for long. When a virulent new disease, or a genetically modified version of an old disease is released, the rabbit population crashes, but within a few years it bounces back, as adaptions for resistance to the new disease spread rapidly through the population.
The reason for this adaptability is that rabbits breed like, er rabbits. Any advantageous mutation can reach the entire population within a few generations. Even when subject to extreme stress, such as artificially weaponised diseases, the entire population is reconstituted from a handful of survivors, faster than Australian scientists can find new ways to kill them. The suggestion that a few degrees of warming would have a significant impact on rabbit populations is ridiculous, in the face of the Australian experience.
“In less than a century, rabbits introduced from temperate England infested the blistering hot Australian outback, to the point that they became a major economic threat to Australian farmers.”
Not only in the hot tropics, simultaneously they overrun bleak, subarctic Macquarie Island to the point where they have virtually eliminated all vegetation (though a poison eradication program has apparently succeeded in wiping them out in the last few years)
“The wind is blowing, blowing over the grass.
It shakes the willow catkins; the leaves shine silver.
Where are you going, wind? Far, far away
Over the hills, over the edge of the world.
Take me with you, wind, high over the sky.
I will go with you, I will be rabbit-of-the-wind,
Into the sky, the feathery sky and the rabbit.
In autumn the leaves come blowing, yellow and brown.
They rustle in the ditches, they tug and hang on the hedge.
Where are you going, leaves? Far, far away
Into the earth we go, with the rain and the berries.
Take me, leaves, O take me on your dark journey.
I will go with you, I will be rabbit-of-the-leaves,
In the deep places of the earth, the earth and the rabbit.
Frith lies in the evening sky. The clouds are red about him.
I am here, Lord Frith, I am running through the long grass.
O take me with you, dropping behind the woods,
Far away, to the heart of light, the silence.
For I am ready to give you my breath, my life,
The shining circle of the sun, the sun and the rabbit.”
Silverweed, from Watership Down.
A bit dry but tasty with bacon and prunes
I saw an experiment once where they managed to switch the brains of a human and a rabbit by using some sort of helmet connected with bunches of wires and lots of electricity. Perhaps what has happened here is that the rabbit brains have been switched with the climatologist brains. Next the IPCC will be issuing rules on rabbits as the protected species of the world
Glenn999
April 18, 2015 at 10:26 am
I saw an experiment once where they managed to switch the brains of a human and a rabbit by using some sort of helmet connected with bunches of wires and lots of electricity.
So, they ended up with a man that only wanted to run around having sex and a rabbit that… uh,
so there was actually no change at all.
Here is an interesting paragraph from the paper:
“Non-native ranges for the only three invasive lagomorphs, European hare (Lepus europaeus), Eastern cottontail (Sylvilagus floridanus) and European rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus), were not modelled because invasive species are not at equilibrium with the environment and their niches cannot be transferred in space and time”
So all of you here who have been talking about how well rabbits seem to do virtually anywhere on the planet, please shut up. Those rabbits are not at equilibrum, they are cheating and therefore don’t count.
More seriously that sentence sums up one of the most common and cherished illusions of “conservation science”, the idea of a sort of preindustrial Eden where everything was unchangeable and “at equilibrum”. Of course this has never been, climate (and almost everything else) has always been changing, nearly all species are always changing their range, and are “invasive” in that sense. And the modern range of a species almost certainly is smaller than its potential climatic range.
Pamela, Are you sure you didn’t plant the whole idea of Eric’s post just so you could post this video? Too FUNNY!
Fallacious claims. The very first line of the abstract… make that just the first half of the very first line in the abstract, to wit: “Climate change during the past five decades has impacted significantly on natural ecosystems….” is an assumptive statement that requires – at minimum – 1) specific examples, and 2) definitive proof that “climate change” is the responsible factor… not to mention a definition of the descriptive term “impacted significantly.” Else the assumption is nothing more than argument by assertion, i.e., Ipse dixit. High school debate teams know better.
Patton giving a speech to his men before battle was quoted: ” Kill the Nazi bastards”
Montgomery quoted describing his plan to attack Belgium “I’ll come on them like an angry rabbit!” Did he know any AGW scientists?
Rabbits are also on the list of “What have the Romans ever done for us?”.
They apparently introduced the rabbit to Britain[*]. So before they adapted to Australian heat the same population had already adapted once to British cold (notwithstanding the ‘Roman Warm Period’).
*[In cli-sci model world, the rabbits probably introduced the Romans to Britain.]
I’m waiting for the next theory, that a hotter world will bring about larger animals, aka giant dinosaur rabbits.
I am betting that someone out there has managed to make a model write a script for Jurassic Park 4. Now I just have to come up with a running title.
Damn. It’s already been done. There go my millions.
Warming will suit rabbits just fine. They flourished beyond imagination in most parts of Australia. Their first preference was of course food, but after that the warmer and drier the better.
Their second preference is sex. You forgot to mention that.
Food, sex and then comfort.
Those are the needs of a rabbit.
Translation:
Others and we have done this before and gotten away with it.
We’re so proud of our abilities that we decided to generalize specific traits. Lump sum all of the potentials so we can find those miniscule hidden CAGW boosting variables.
Translation:
We held group meetings to solicit and collect member opinions. Forming collective political decisions regarding model capabilities. Yay us!
Translation:
Of course, we generated sufficient confirmation bias statistic results to make it look all sciency.
Translation:
Here is where we included or imbedded all of the proper variables necessary to fulfill our confirmation bias.
Meaning opinions.
A very interesting way to state that their collective confirmation biases decided what and where they would model species.
In their “S3 Supporting Information. Fig. D. Percentage change in predicted lagomorph species richness from the 1930s to 2080s.” the researchers ‘graphically portray world and continent area changes.
Odd, Australia and the Arctic are not modeled
One also wonders just how those pesky wabbits are modeled for areas like the North America; just how are causes for past changes in population decided? e.g. hunting, poison, disease, coyote expansion…
Ah yes, the “Table C. Results: phylogenetically-controlled generalised least square regressions.”
Subjectively chosen traits tortured into submission.
Let’s not forget that list of rabbit, hare, and pika experts. Again the supplement “S3 Supporting Information. Table A. Lagomorph experts, institutions and species evaluated.” boldly lists at least one WWF ‘expert’.
One generalized model mess. One does wonder how many ‘meetings’ in far flung exotic locations were required.
Wile E. Coyote, Elmer Fudd and Daffy Duck would be embarrassed to be associated with this research.
T T T That’s All Folks!
“Species Distribution Models (SDMs) have been used widely to project changes”
Translation: ‘Who needs ground truthing, anyway.’ Without validation, models are just so many castles in the air.
And let’s not forget Roger Rabbit…
I found the model used in the study. And it includes wolf issues as well. Wonder why they didn’t add that to the study? The model includes bunny population explosions, die-off, killer bunnies, etc. These devastating effects were all anthropogenic in origin. Humans selfishly use animals for their own pleasure. Dirty humans.
After following science for most of my 77 years and being involved as a layman on the edges of science as a trustee for a major science institute here in south east OZ for 28 years I am seeing something that a couple of decades ago I would never have believed could have ever happened.
And that is large parts of science along with the institutions associated with science being ridiculed, disparaged, subject to contemptuous commentary, being accused of gross greed, ignorance, plagiarism, arrogance, data manipulation, overweening self promotion, hubris on a grand scale, bigotry, rabidly fixated ideological conformity and intellectual incompetence on a grand scale, all unfortunately in my humble opinion fully justified by the facts and performances surrounding the practicing of most science and the operations of most scientific institutions today.
Large parts of science and the”scientists” involved have been totally corrupted by both floods of tax payers money and the previously well earned public respect for science as a license to justify just about any stupidity emanating from some wannabe pseudo, self important scientists.
Those same scientists arrogantly promote and publicly parade their own personal opinions on any subject as some sort of highly relevant scientific opinion of great import to society, a society which should be prepared to take that opinion of such an important personage in science as gospel to be implemented as rapidly as possible across the whole of the said society.
Science is well on the it’s way to skid row in public opinion unless it cleanses it’s Augean stables and very soon.
+100, ROM
After more than a century of all-out warfare against rabbits in Australia, the place is still packed with rabbits. Rabbits were introduced in the early 1800s. Armed assault, chemical warfare and introduced and local predators have had no impact. They spread from the Australian Alps to the Australian deserts.
I think they will laugh off CO2.
Aw heck, just for the fun of it…
Can I put this up ?
Doesn’t work in Austalian. Damned geoblocking. I’ll never use YouTube again.
Don’t let them wind you up with stuff like this.
They know that there are still real scientists out there who care about what is real.
They are trying to f**k with our brains by putting out crap like this,
knowing how it will offend anyone with real scientific instinct.
They target such individuals as enemies of the people.
As Winston Churchill used to say:
“Don’t let the bu99ers get you down”.
Where grass grows, rabbits grow. NZ has a leporidae population problem second only to Australias. Here, they are a pest. They flourish from sea level to the high alpine meadow. They don’t seem to care about climate.
Mustelids were introduced to try and control them. The weasels, stoats and ferrets found the native bird population much easier and tastier game, driving some species into extinction. But not the rabbits. They didn’t notice. They must have made the place seem more like home.
Myxomatosis affected them like the Great Flu Epidemic of 1919-1921 affected human populations—killed some and the population rebounded.
The four day Great Easter Bunny Hunt is an annual institution, taking out thousands. But that … dip … in the population is filled by that time next year.
So climate Change is going to affect them? I better lay in more ammo, then.
Species Distribution Models (SDMs). Unbelievable … more models. I’m sick of bl**dy models!
yum. I love me some rabbit, pan fried, splashed with sherry the last minute to deglaze the pan, and served with mashed potatoes and gravy. Some wilted greens top it off. Anything printed with Samuel Adams washes it all down. Homemade ice cream smothered in huckleberry jam and drizzled with a dark chocolate sauce sends my family to bed happy.
My favorite global warming story is the super abundance of cats in Germany and the chronic shortage of Bulgarian prostitutes.
I knew I knew that word:
Lepus “The Hare” is an ancient constellation that can be located in the southern hemisphere directly south of the constellation Orion, “The Hunter”. The name Lepus comes from the Latin origin meaning “hare”. The constellation was founded by the Greek astronomer Claudius Ptolemy in the 2nd century.
Per:
https://astronomylinks.wikispaces.com/Lepus
Rabbits are a very serious problem is S.E. Australia. They have no natural predators here. As a result, they destroy large swathes of flora, cause erosion and even have the capacity to decimate entire forests, by preventing natural regrowth as old trees die out, which is common in our rather highly variable climate. At the moment there are almost plague numbers of these pests. If global warming or cooling or farting or whatever is happening helps to reduce their numbers, it will only be welcomed here. However, I seriously doubt that it would be the case, since this creature is enormously adaptable, endures incredible temperature and weather extremes and does not seem to be in any way deterred from its incessantly destructive behaviours and its almost unmatched capacity for replication.
I guess wabbits are so cute – therefore climate change is a very great threat to them. Quite unlike giant spiders Since most people don’t find giant spiders cute climate change will inevitably increase thier numbers. (see spider article today on wuwt).
Its pretty simple. Climate change is bad therefore;
– cute animals will all die!!
– ugly animals will totally take over the world!!
And don’t get me started on the rabbit plague in Australia. That situation alone destroys any credibility this ‘research’ may have pretended to have.
The ignorant comments left here are simply climate-change [snip. Stop using pejoratives like “deniers”. -mod.] reactions to a headline rather than the content of the original scientific paper. European rabbits (invasive in Australia) and American cottontails may be very common and widespread but the paper looks at 87 species of lagomorphs (not just rabbits but hares, jackrabbits and pikas) of which a quarter are ALREADY threatened with extinction with 13 endangered or critically endangered. For example, pikas already live at the top of mountains and empirical observation (rather than modelling) DOES show that they have already disappeared from many lowland or southern latitude sites entirely consistent with model predictions. There is a nice rebuttal to Eric Worrall’s poor reporting and all these nonsensical comments at: hotwhopper. If you had bothered to read the original paper you would also know that the study was NOT funded by tax payers money; rather internal funds; thus no one paid for a particular outcome other than the scientists who were genuinely interested to know what might happen this already highly threatened yet charismatic and much loved group.
This pika myth has been rebutted already. It is false.
Your tax dollars at work.