evolution-themed studies of change

[Connie Weber]

"Survival of the less fit" --The Economist

"ON THE remote island of Hirta, in the St Kilda archipelago beyond the Outer Hebrides, live hundreds of wild Soay sheep. Over the past 20 years biologists studying this primitive breed, which has not changed much since the Bronze Age, have noticed that the sheep are getting smaller. This was a puzzle because, in general, bigger animals are usually much better at surviving the island’s extremely cold winters. The biologists now think that climate change could be involved."

[Connie Weber]

another:

"For Some Birds, Chancy Climates Mean Better Singers" --by Susan Millius, ScienceNews

from the article:

"“You’ve got to suffer if you want to sing the blues” may apply to mockingbirds too.

In the Mimidae family, of mockingbirds and thrashers, the species with the more elaborate male courtship songs tend to be those living in the more challenging climates, says Carlos Botero of the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center in Durham, N.C.

Virtuoso birdsong, Botero explains, means precision in repeated elements, abundant variety in tweets and trills plus dead-on mimicry of other sounds, whether from neighboring bird species or car alarms. Mockingbird species that excel in such performance tend to breed in zones of hard-to-predict and highly variable temperature and precipitation, Botero and his colleagues report online May 21 in Current Biology."