A Variety Of Responses
Shifting Habitats
The American pika, a small rodent that lives in California mountains, cannot tolerate temperatures much higher than 80 degrees. As temperatures have risen, some pika populations have moved more than 1.300 feet further up the slopes to find a cooler home.
Predators Decline As Prey Declines
One Isle Royale, Mich., higher temperatures mean that one species of tick is growing more numerous and becoming more troublesome for the island's moose. As the population of moose declined, so has the population of wolves, which prey on the moose for food.
Shifting Migration Patterns
Many birds have begun marking their annual migrations earlier - some British species have shifted by two to three weeks over the past 30 years. That can be a problem if the bird's main source doesn't also shift its timing so it is available when the bird need to eat.
Entire Ecosystem Changes
In the northern Bering Sea, near Alaska, warmer waters are causing an entire ecosystem shift. Native animals, such a walruses and gray whales, are finding less of the prey animals they rely on. At the same time, fish are moving in from less frigid areas.
Adaptation
Research on wood frogs in New England seems to show that they may be able to evolve and adapt to rising temperatures. That is good news, but scientists say that many animal will not be able to evolve in the same way.
Changes Local And Beyond
Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge, Md.
Rising water levels threaten to turn most of this enormous swamp - which shelters baby fish and blue crabs along with migrating birds - into open water by 2030. A crucial habitat on the Eastern Shore be gone in century.
Catoctin Mountain, Frederick County
The brook trout that live in mountain streams here cannot tolerate water much hotter than 68 degrees. As temperatures rise, the fish in central Maryland could be gone in a century.
Monteverde Cloud Forest, Costa Rica
Animals living in the forest depend on moisture from near-constant cloud of mist and fog. Climate change seems to be reducing this moisture. Two amphibian species have not be seen since the 1980s and are now presumed extinct.
South Pacific Ocean
Warming waters have become too hot for coral reefs in some places, leading to so-called "bleaching" in which large amounts of coral die. During 1998, warm temperatures killed off about 16 percent of all the world's coral.
Beaufort and Chukchi seas, Off Alaska
Walrus mothers in this area typically leave their young on the sea ice while they dive down to find food on the bottom. But now, sea ice is melting more rapidly than before, which can leave walrus calves floating helplessly in open water
Shifting Habitats
The American pika, a small rodent that lives in California mountains, cannot tolerate temperatures much higher than 80 degrees. As temperatures have risen, some pika populations have moved more than 1.300 feet further up the slopes to find a cooler home.
Predators Decline As Prey Declines
One Isle Royale, Mich., higher temperatures mean that one species of tick is growing more numerous and becoming more troublesome for the island's moose. As the population of moose declined, so has the population of wolves, which prey on the moose for food.
Shifting Migration Patterns
Many birds have begun marking their annual migrations earlier - some British species have shifted by two to three weeks over the past 30 years. That can be a problem if the bird's main source doesn't also shift its timing so it is available when the bird need to eat.
Entire Ecosystem Changes
In the northern Bering Sea, near Alaska, warmer waters are causing an entire ecosystem shift. Native animals, such a walruses and gray whales, are finding less of the prey animals they rely on. At the same time, fish are moving in from less frigid areas.
Adaptation
Research on wood frogs in New England seems to show that they may be able to evolve and adapt to rising temperatures. That is good news, but scientists say that many animal will not be able to evolve in the same way.
Changes Local And Beyond
Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge, Md.
Rising water levels threaten to turn most of this enormous swamp - which shelters baby fish and blue crabs along with migrating birds - into open water by 2030. A crucial habitat on the Eastern Shore be gone in century.
Catoctin Mountain, Frederick County
The brook trout that live in mountain streams here cannot tolerate water much hotter than 68 degrees. As temperatures rise, the fish in central Maryland could be gone in a century.
Monteverde Cloud Forest, Costa Rica
Animals living in the forest depend on moisture from near-constant cloud of mist and fog. Climate change seems to be reducing this moisture. Two amphibian species have not be seen since the 1980s and are now presumed extinct.
South Pacific Ocean
Warming waters have become too hot for coral reefs in some places, leading to so-called "bleaching" in which large amounts of coral die. During 1998, warm temperatures killed off about 16 percent of all the world's coral.
Beaufort and Chukchi seas, Off Alaska
Walrus mothers in this area typically leave their young on the sea ice while they dive down to find food on the bottom. But now, sea ice is melting more rapidly than before, which can leave walrus calves floating helplessly in open water
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