SAN DIEGO
In the struggle to survive the ever hotter deserts of California, there are winners and losers.
Among the losers are desert birds, whose populations have collapsed amid the heat stress of climate change. The winners, it turns out, are small burrowing mammals, including the cactus mouse, kangaroo rat and white-tailed antelope squirrel, which take refuge from the sun underground.
Researchers, including scientists from the San Diego Natural History Museum, published those results in the journal Science this month, noting that the stable mammal populations formed a hopeful contrast to the dire condition of birds.
“Why was the mammal community relatively stable compared to the bird community?” asked study co-author Lori Hargrove, an ecologist at the San Diego Natural History Museum. “Birds had a higher evaporative heat loss. Birds were more exposed to the effects of warming, so they had higher energy costs to maintain their body temperature, whereas mammals were
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In the struggle to survive the ever hotter deserts of California, there are winners and losers.
Among the losers are desert birds, whose populations have collapsed amid the heat stress of climate change. The winners, it turns out, are small burrowing mammals, including the the cactus mouse, kangaroo rat and white-tailed antelope squirrel, which take refuge from the sun underground.
Researchers, including scientists from the San Diego Natural History Museum, published those results in the journal Science this month, noting that the stable mammal populations formed a hopeful contrast to the dire condition of birds.
“Why was the mammal community relatively stable compared to the bird community?” asked study co-author Lori Hargrove, an ecologist at the San Diego Natural History Museum. “Birds had a higher evaporative heat loss. Birds were more exposed to the effects of warming, so they had higher energy costs to maintain their body temperature, whereas mammals were able t