How Climate Change Impacts Cold-Blooded Species: They Grow Bigger on Land

It turns out that cold-blooded animals may actual grow larger in size with warmer air temperatures nearer to the equator. Surprisingly, though, the reverse is true of species found in warmer water. Now, scientists are taking a closer look at this phenomenon.

Understanding how species respond to warmer temperatures is important for assessing the impact of climate change. Warmer temperatures that cause a change in body size can affect many aspects of an animal's health, as well as alter the composition of ecologically and economically important ecosystems.

In order to better understand the body sizes of cold-blooded species, the scientists gathered together existing global data. In the end, they found a close match between the sensitivity of body size to temperature measured in the lab, and body size trends seen in nature.

"Increasing our understanding of what influences how big animals grow will mean we can start to make better predictions about how different groups of species will cope with climate change," said Curtis Horne, one of the researchers, in a news release. "We see a really close match between lab experiments and patterns observed in nature, which suggests that the same factors are at play. It brings us a significant step closer to solving a problem that has long puzzled biologists."

So why the differences in sizes? When there are warmer temperatures in the water, there may also be reduced oxygen availability. This, in turn, may cause aquatic animals to reduce their body size. On land, though, animals don't have this problem. Instead, the warmer temperatures make it easier for species to increase their body size.

The findings reveal a bit more about how climate change may impact species. This, in turn, is important to note as temperatures warm.

The findings are published in the journal Ecology Letters.

For more great science stories and general news, please visit our sister site, Headlines and Global News (HNGN).