animals and climate change

Round-up of some articles involving animal behavior and climate change

Climate Change Forcing Penguins North?, via IPS

In October of this year, 2,500 penguins found themselves in Brazil, 50% of them dead and the rest of them starving. The Magellan penguin, found in Patagonia, eat anchovies by following their migratory pattern through the cool water, during the winter, to fatten up for their hybernation.

It is thought that the penguins were confused after the anchovies were able to swim deeper into the colder waters. The penguins were not able to get deeper in the water, became disoriented and washed up on the shores dead or starving. Climate change is the suspect due to increase in surface temperature.

More polar bears going hungry, via The New Scientist

Warmer temperatures and earlier melting of sea ice are causing polar bears to go hungry. The number of undernourished bears has tripled in a 20-year period. The increase in fasting bears is explained by warmer temperatures and earlier spring melts. Polar bears use sea ice as a hunting platform, catching seals by sitting next to their breathing holes and waiting to pounce. Spring is usually a time of feasting for polar bears, filling up before summer when the ice retreats. “It is clear that the changes in the sea ice are affecting the hunting opportunities available to the bears,” says co-author Andrew Derocher of the University of Alberta.

The First Full Accounting of Colony Collapse Disorder, via The Daily Green

These discoveries have been extremely beneficial to beekeepers, but the basic act of taking good notes and gathering lots of data over time and from many places has been perhaps even more helpful for understanding CCD, and in helping beekeepers. Over the two years that Colony Collapse Disorder has been a recognized problem, no other researchers that I am aware of have visited as many beeyards suffering CCD, in as many locations, and over as long a time. In a full report prepared by this team to be released in the February issue of Bee Culture magazine, Bee Alert’s Scott Debnam and Jerry Bromenshenk from Missoula Montana, David Westervelt from Florida’s Apiary Inspections Bureau, and Randy Oliver, a commercial beekeeper with real-world honey bee research experience from Grass Valley, California detail the symptoms of CCD with respect to where it hits, and when it hits. This information is critical in making a diagnosis as the symptoms change as seasons progress and knowing what to look for, and when to look for it, is absolutely necessary in making a correct diagnosis. So far, to even answer the simple question: “Is this colony dying from CCD, or something else?” has been difficult to answer.

If you have any interest in Colony Collapse Disorder, this is a fascinating article.