Animals Are Shape-shifting in Response to Climate Change 動(dòng)物正在改變體形，以應(yīng)對氣候變化

打開文本圖片集

At a South African nature preserve where Miya Warrington， a conservation ecologist at the University of Manitoba in Canada， and her colleagues study Cape ground squirrels， the maximum daily temperature has increased by about 2.5°C in just 18 years. The animals have evolved a quiver of tactics to tolerate the region’s sweltering heat， says Warrington.

Sprawling flat on the ground in a pose called splooting helps the animals shed heat from their less furry undersides. The squirrels take shady respites under their bushy tails， which they curl above their heads like tiny parasols. When it’s really hot， the fossorial mammals retreat to their burrows to cool off. But Warrington warns that， even with all these options for keeping cool， “still they could be at the limits of their tolerance” due to the climatic shift.

在南非的一個(gè)自然保護(hù)區(qū)，加拿大曼尼托巴大學(xué)的生態(tài)保護(hù)學(xué)家米亞·沃靈頓和她的同事在研究南非地松鼠時(shí)發(fā)現(xiàn)，這里的日最高氣溫在短短18年內(nèi)已經(jīng)上升了約2.5攝氏度。（剩余1752字）