The impacts of climate change on individual populations and species overall vary greatly depending on the species in question. While climate change is and will continue to drive some species to extinction, other species appear to benefit from the warming globe. However, whether the impacts being positive now mean they will be in the future is yet unknown.
One animal that is currently falling in the category of benefiting, at least temporarily, from climate change is the marmot. A study spanning thirty-three years recently published in the journal Nature finds that marmots are benefiting from extended summers due to climate change. The marmots appear to be benefiting through increased body weight and increased populations.
The study was conducted on marmots living in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado some two miles above sea level. The reason for the shift in size and population of the marmots is due to the increased summer months and subsequent earlier appearances of the marmots from hibernation. In fact, the researchers found that the marmots were ending hibernation approximately twenty-one days earlier than in the early years of the study.
Overall, the researchers found that female marmots were a pound heavier now than at the beginning of the study. In addition, the populations were gaining 14.2 marmots every year throughout 2001 through 2008. This is in stark contrast to the increase of just 0.56 marmots every year from 1976 to 2001.
However, these apparent benefits to the populations may not last. The researchers plan to continue their research to determine how continued climate change will impact the marmots. But for now the researchers predict that climate change will catch up with the marmots and begin to have negative impacts on the populations.
Co-author of the study, Daniel Blumstein, stated: “If climatic predictions come to pass, we will ultimately have less summer rainfall, and late summer droughts are a real problem for marmots.” In addition, other researchers are predicting that predation will become a problem, especially due to the marmots ending hibernation earlier.
