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foxnews.com/science/reindeer-eating-seaweed-climate-change
Named after the group of Norwegian islands they've lived on for 5,000 years, these 20,000–plus reindeer are now eating seaweed to survive the increasingly warm winters. According to researchers from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology's Centre for Biodiversity Dynamic, the reindeer are turning to seaweed because the plants they normally eat are becoming harder to get to.
More rain is now falling instead of snow, which causes the snow on the ground to freeze over [...] burying the tundra vegetation under thick ice.
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-04/nuos-rat042419.php
[...] So they devised a way to figure out if indeed reindeer were eating seaweed, and why.
This involved -- and there is no polite way to say it -- collecting and testing their poop. It turns out that researchers can distinguish between different kinds of food animals eat by testing their hair or their scat for isotopes.
In this case, the researchers collected reindeer poop from animals that were in habitats near the shore as well as from animals that lived in areas far from the shore. They then looked at stable isotope ratios of carbon, nitrogen and sulphur, all of which will have values that are detectably different in scat from reindeer that eat seaweed compared to scat from reindeer with a more traditional diet of terrestrial plants.
The researchers also had nine years of data for ground ice thickness, which they called basal ice. They combined this with GPS collar data, and location data from a total of 2199 reindeer observations during those years. They were then able to calculate where the reindeer were with respect to the coastline, and to see if more reindeer went to the coast to feed in years when the ground ice was thicker.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Monday May 13 2019, @05:25AM (9 children)
There is a polite way to say it. It involved collecting and testing their excrements.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 13 2019, @05:30AM
Maybe there is no polite way to say it in Norwegian.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Monday May 13 2019, @05:54AM
or "droppings" or "# 2" or "BMs" or "stool"...
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Monday May 13 2019, @06:35AM (1 child)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 3, Funny) by Pslytely Psycho on Monday May 13 2019, @06:42AM
Shittiest comment thread ever.
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Pslytely Psycho on Monday May 13 2019, @06:50AM (4 children)
Why not go with feces?
Simple, direct, non-offensive, even if you're a Coprophiliac...
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 13 2019, @07:23AM (2 children)
isn't it faeces?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 13 2019, @08:30AM
Looks too much like facist, which looks like racist.
(Score: 2) by Pslytely Psycho on Tuesday May 14 2019, @12:25AM
America, repairing Europe's fixation on too many vowels.
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Monday May 13 2019, @08:55AM
Shit
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex