Global-scale animal ecology reveals behavioral changes in response to climate change

 Erin Foley

AP Bio C Block Odd

Nov. 5th, 2020

Current Event #6

“Global-Scale Animal Ecology Reveals Behavioral Changes in Response to Climate Change.” 

University of Maryland, ScienceDaily, 5 Nov. 2020, 

www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/11/201105183834.html. 

As of November 5th, scientists have made discoveries concerning patterns and associations between climate change and the behavior of several species, mainly, caribou. An international team including researchers at University of Maryland have been keeping a database of animal movement across the global Arctic and sub-Arctic region, an area that has been experiencing drastic changes to its climate. The archive of movements allowed the researchers to conduct three case studies tracking 8,000 animals across 29 years, making this study one of the largest global ecology studies to date. Researchers found that caribou who make long-distance migrations are giving birth earlier in the spring - roughly tracking rates of warming. On the other hand, of the caribou that do not make long-distance migrations, only the northern sub-populations show similar changes. These different results are confusing to researchers, but beginning to understand them will be crucial to understanding how animals will respond to climate change in the Arctic, especially as Arctic animal populations are starting to decline. Elie Gurarie, an associate researcher in UMD’s Department of Biology, says that "It's tricky to predict how these trends might impact populations... it can be better to give birth earlier, as it gives the calves more opportunity to grow during the summer season. On the other hand, giving birth too early may mean you literally don't have time to reach the optimal calving grounds.” Regardless of whether this behavioral change will help caribou adapt or decrease their evolutionary advantages, the fact that a global movement ecology study was able to be done on this massive scale will help greatly researchers understand the correlation between behaviors and climate change. "This work has given us a baseline to understand the large-scale picture so we can get a sense of how animals and environments are really interacting across species and across space as the environment changes,” according to Gurarie.

This study has major implications on society, especially as climate change begins to amp up in Arctic and sub-Arctic regions. According to the Marine Mammal Commission, “The Arctic is warming at a rate almost twice the global average and reductions in Arctic sea-ice and permafrost and changes in weather are increasingly visible”. The effect this has had on arctic populations is devastating. Declining populations of polar bears, moose, caribou, golden eagles and more will have serious consequences for biodiversity and on the global biome. Thus, understanding how animals have begun to adapt to a changing climate is essential, and this study is one of the first where data can span so many species, and across so many years. If caribou are beginning to breed earlier in the spring for some reason connected to the climate, their calves could be at an advantage, as it’s easier for them to find food in the summer. However, if climate change continues, and caribou begin to breed earlier and earlier, they will not be able to finish their migration to  its traditional calving grounds, and their population will greatly decline. Although this change in behavior may sound minuscule and inconsequential, it will prove whether animals will be able to adapt to climate change, or merely go extinct as our planet warms. And this is not only happening to caribou - several different species are experiencing behavioral changes with respect to climate change, and if we don’t begin to understand them soon, we will experience a loss of biodiversity comparable to that of the ice age.

I believe that this article was very informative, and made its significance clear, but there was some substance lost in how many questions were left unanswered. From the beginning, the author related the study to climate change, which tends to quickly draw readers in, as it is a prevalent and important issue. Because of this hook, readers are much more likely to actually care about the behavioral changes in caribou, which otherwise seem obscure and insignificant. Moreover, the authors clearly explained their method of study - the archive of movements - and described its significance, as global studies are much more informative and more commonly used these days, which has allowed researchers to make broader conclusions. Finally, the authors used a number of direct primary sources, including interviews from some of the researchers from the study, giving the reader a sense of security when accepting the articles’ conclusions to be true. However, many questions were left unanswered in this article, specifically, why climate change was forcing caribou to breed earlier. Obviously, this remains a mystery to the researchers themselves, but at least mentioning a few theories would have improved and clarified the author’s argument. Although corroborating theories would have strengthened this article, I did feel that it was greatly impactful, as the effects of climate change on behavioral ecology can be viewed across extremely large populations.