| Title | Climate Change Causing Mountain Goats to Shrink | |
| Date | Friday October 24 2014, @06:03PM | |
| Author | azrael | |
| Topic | ||
| from the change-begets-change dept. | ||
The Center for American Progress reports:
New research has found that climate change is causing mountain goats living in the Alps to shrink. The study, which was published Tuesday in the journal Frontiers in Zoology, found that adolescent Alpine chamois mountain goats are significantly smaller than their peers were 30 years ago, weighing about 25 percent less than goats in the 1980s did. The researchers called this change in body mass over 3 decades "striking". They also said the shrinking "appears to be strongly linked" with increased temperatures in the growing season of the goats' Alpine habitats.
The study noted that climate change has been linked to changes in body mass of other species before. But in those situations, the mass change was typically due to a change in the amount of food available or in the timing in which food was available--changes in bud burst timing in the spring, for instance. That wasn't the case in the goats' situation, however.
They have modified their behaviour and avoid foraging during the warmest part of the day so that they don't overheat.
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