Wild Things:
Life as We Know It
Geckos, tiny dinosaurs, cave man couture, and more
- By Amanda Bensen, Abby Callard, T.A. Frail, Ashley Luthern and Sarah Zielinski
- Smithsonian magazine, November 2009
A Western tanager (iStockphoto)
In the early 1900s, UC Berkeley's Joseph Grinnell surveyed bird territories in California's Sierra Nevada. Biologists have now found that out of 53 bird species, 48 have moved. Why? Climate change, they say. Many of the birds' new ranges are farther north or higher in altitude, with temperatures or rainfall akin to where they lived before.
Learn more about the western tanager at the Encyclopedia of Life.
Additional Sources
"Birds track their Grinnellian niche through a century of climate change," Morgan W. Tingley et al., PNAS, September 15, 2009.
"30,000-Year-Old Wild Flax Fibers," Eliso Kvavadze et al., Science, September 11, 2009.
"Tyrannosaurid Skeletal Design First Evolved at Small Body Size," Paul C. Sereno et al., Science, September 17, 2009.
"Flip, flop and fly: modulated motor control and highly variable movement patterns of autotomized gecko tails," Timothy E. Higham and Anthony P. Russell, Biology Letters, September 9, 2009.
"Thelytokous Parthenogenesis in the Fungus-Gardening Ant Mycocepurus smithii (Hymenoptera: Formicidae)," Christian Rabeling et al., PLoS ONE, August 2009.
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