The effects of a warmer world are visible in animals’ bodies

FOR HUMANSPD, adapting to climate change will mostly be a matter of technology. More air conditioning, better-designed houses and bigger flood defences may help ameliorate the effects of a warmer world. Animals will have to rely on changing their bodies or their behaviour. In a paper published in , a team led by Sara Ryding, a h candidate at Deakin University, in Australia, shows that is already happening. Climate change is already altering the bodies of many animal species, giving them bigger beaks, limbs and ears.In some species of Australian parrot, for instance, beak size has increased by between 4% and 10% since 1871. Another study, this time in North American dark-eyed juncos, another bird, found the same pattern. Similar trends are seen in mammals, with species of mice, shrews and bats evolving bigger ears, tails, legs and wings.