from the are-males-moving-up-or-are-females-coming-down? dept.
Rapidly changing ratios of the sexes of valerian plants could be a quick sign of climate change. Science News reports that researchers have found that in Colorado's Rocky Mountains, male and female valerian plants have responded differently to hotter, drier conditions.
Valerian (Valeriana edulis) plants range from hot, scrubby lowlands to cold alpine slopes. In each patch of plants, some are male and some are female. The exact proportion of each sex varies with elevation. High on the mountain, females are much more common than males; they can make up 80 percent of some populations.
Four decades ago, in patches of valerian growing in the middle of the plant's elevation range, 33.4 percent of the plants were males. Those patches grew in the Rockies at elevations around 3,000 meters. Today, you would have to hike considerably higher to find the same proportion of male plants. Males, now 5.5 percent more common on average, are reaching higher elevations than in the past, researchers report in the July 1 Science.
"We think climate is acting almost like a filter on males and females," says Will Petry of ETH Zurich, who led the study while at the University of California, Irvine. "The settings on this filter are controlling the sex ratio." Those settings are sweeping up the mountainside like a rising tide at a rate of 175 meters per decade, Petry and colleagues found.
[...] Those moving sex ratios have kept pace with climate change since the late 1970s. Today, winter snows are melting earlier and summers are hotter, with less rain. As a result, the same amount of precipitation that would have fallen at one elevation in 1978 now falls at higher elevations instead; it has moved upslope by 133 meters per decade. Soil moisture has moved up the mountain, too, by 195 meters per decade.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 05 2016, @02:24PM
When will these so-called scientists realise, they have faked their data! Global warming is not real, and anyone who says it is has blinkers on.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 05 2016, @02:35PM
I too grow tired of being exposed to this propaganda everyday. Been hearing it for 10 years and the data has always been inconclusive.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 05 2016, @03:11PM
Censored when you don't drink the kool-aid
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 05 2016, @03:21PM
Come back when you can do more than whine.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 05 2016, @03:25PM
Come back when you can prove global warming is anything more than just a globalist plot to control energy through international energy treaties and carbon taxes
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 05 2016, @03:50PM
Censorship continues. No one is allowed to disagree with the narrative. I was taught by my geology professor in college that global warming from carbon emissions is not real and show showed how there is not correlation between temperature and carbon emissions. What does she know, being a professional on the subject and all, right?
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Tuesday July 05 2016, @04:32PM
Two major problems with your argument:
- Geology is largely unrelated to any of the sciences directly related to global warming, and professors (PhDs in general really) are notorious for assuming their expertise is far more broadly applicable than it actually is. Quite simply they are a professional on the subject of geology, NOT climatology (You wouldn't ask an immunologist to perform brain surgery, and those are both doctors whose expertise is far more closely related).
They could quite possibly explain to you the geologic carbon cycle, and exactly why we can be so sure that the increase in atmospheric carbon is due to human activity, but they probably know little to nothing about the physics that makes higher global temperatures in response a near-certainty, nor the potential climate and weather responses to such warming. The science is simply far outside their area of expertise.
- If they claimed no correlation between temperature and atmospheric carbon levels, they're either incompetent or lying - the geologic record is quite clear that there's a strong correlation between global warming and, after a few thousand years of lag, climbing atmospheric carbon levels. There is an apparent causal relationship - global warming seems to trigger a number of feedback mechanisms that release much more CO2 into the atmosphere. That has little to do with the immediate problem, since CO2 has never been the forcing factor that triggered a global climate transition before, but it suggests that once some critical amount of warming is reached, other factors will sustain the process until the opposite extreme of our bistable climate system is reached.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 05 2016, @04:43PM
CO2 levels naturally rises and falls when the temperature rises and falls, thus why it was thought that there was was a correlation between CO2 and temperatures. CO2 levels are multitudes higher after the industrial revolution than they ever have been before, however temperatures have not changed any more than natural rises and falls in temperature over time. You can see this on any chart comparing CO2 and temperatures. CO2 has a massive spike while temperatures appear to be following it's normal path.
(Score: 2) by Zz9zZ on Tuesday July 05 2016, @06:22PM
Time lag due to heat sinks. A lot of the excess heat has gone into the oceans and glaciers, hence those glaciers no longer exist. When the heat sinks are exhausted, expect that spike in temperature you think is the missing.
~Tilting at windmills~
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 05 2016, @06:51PM
The heat sink theory appears to be backpedaling to support the original theory that isn't supported by it's own data, a knee jerk reaction to there being no data to support CO2 level dictating temperature. The entire theory grossly oversimplifies the relationship between the atmosphere and the ocean in an attempt backwards rationalize how the tail wags the dog. I can't even find data on ocean temperatures vs carbon levels over the last several centuries. I don't think that data even exist. If it exists can you show me?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 05 2016, @06:58PM
> the geologic record is quite clear that there's a strong correlation between global warming and, after a few thousand years of lag, climbing atmospheric carbon levels
you just described what happens when you recover from an ice age... Temperatures rise and CO2 level raise with them, because temperature used to be strictly dictate CO2 levels before humans burned fossil fuels. CO2 levels are low during an ice age because the atmosphere cannot support them.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 05 2016, @03:49PM
By the way, OP was sarcasm. Anyone with any sense realises that global warming exists.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 05 2016, @04:00PM
Yep, and only fools think soylent green is people.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 05 2016, @04:04PM
You got Poe'd [wikipedia.org].
(Huh, wouldja lookit that. I always though Poe's Law was named after Edgar Alan Poe... Apparently not, it's some random forum poster I've never heard of before. Nice.)
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 05 2016, @02:38PM
Here is a comparison of plant hardiness climate zones [arborday.org] in the US from 1990 to 2015.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 05 2016, @03:36PM
Oh, I wish I were a plant: less competition, more choice.
(Score: 3, Funny) by jcross on Tuesday July 05 2016, @04:01PM
Sex via courier.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Tuesday July 05 2016, @04:02PM
Not sure about the more choice - after all you'd be reproducing by either releasing your gametes on the wind, or sticking them to insects lured into your genitals with the promise of sugar. Either way, you get absolutely no say in where they end up.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Tuesday July 05 2016, @05:16PM
So its the damn bugs they should be studying, not the plants?
Its nature at work doing what has been done for millions of years in the face of changing climates.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Wednesday July 06 2016, @12:34AM
Why study the bugs, the interesting thing seems to be the change in plant gender ratios. And it seems likely that's not genetically determined in these plants, which isn't exactly unusual - even many animals such as crocodiles and fish have their gender determined by environmental factors rather than genetics, some even change gender in adulthood due to environmental factors (f.ex. check out the mating practices of the Clownfish - let's just say "Finding Nemo" would have been a lot less family friendly if it were biologically accurate...)
(Score: 4, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday July 05 2016, @05:25PM
So, the same as every Friday, then?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 05 2016, @05:56PM
Hey, us plants dig that, human; it's our thing.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 05 2016, @08:43PM
..wasn't this titled Hot Sex?
(Score: 1) by gOnZo on Tuesday July 05 2016, @10:36PM
...or WHY is it that females are more likely to find lounging on a sizzling beach appealing, and males are more likely to be found in an air conditioned bar, sipping chilled suds?