Tag: climate change

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Phylogenetic Trees and the Climate-Niche Evolution of Leaf-Warblers

By: Emily Desrosiers, Molly Nyhan, and Tyler Umbra (Stonehill College, BIO323: Evolution, Spring 2026)

In the forests of Europe and Asia, there is a group of small, greenish birds called leaf-warblers. These birds look physically identical to the average person as well as many experts. For years, they have been an evolutionary puzzle: how do species that look so similar end up living in such vastly different environments?

To answer questions like these, researchers make use of phylogenetic trees—diagrams that show how different groups of living things are related and from whom they evolved. If we can trace the ancestry of a bunch of these leaf-warblers, surely, we can get a picture of how and when they spread across vast distances, right? This is where the work of Gräf et al. (2025) comes in, with their recent article published in the journal Diversity, titled “Climate-Niche Evolution in Leaf-Warblers (Aves: Phylloscopidae): A Matter of Phylogeny”.

A short podcast summarizing the article. Image of Tickell’s Leaf Warbler by Earthshine: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tickell%27s_Leaf_Warbler.JPG
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Tadpole Adaptations to Increasing Temperatures in Urban Environments

By: Mallory Crispens, Sarah Faley, and Lilly Leach (Stonehill College, Bio323: Evolution Spring 2024)

Overview

One of the most beneficial characteristics for survival in the natural world is the ability to adapt to changing environments. In the face of climate change and increasing urbanization of rural areas, it has become even more important for wildlife to be able to adapt and endure increasing temperatures. Urban heat islands are a significant consequence of urbanization, occurring when cities replace natural land cover with dense concentrations of pavement, buildings, and other surfaces that absorb and retain heat. These heat islands create a brand-new environment for wildlife, particularly for pond-dwelling animals such as tadpoles whose aquatic environment is sensitive to change. While most organisms living in urban environments have elevated tolerance to heat, the thermal adaptations of aquatic organisms are relatively unknown. In the article, “Tadpoles Develop Elevated Heat Tolerances in Urban Heat Islands Regardless of Sex”, Dr. Bokony analyzes tolerance to increasing temperature, as a result of urbanization, in tadpoles.

A short podcast summarizing the article. Soundtrack image from https://scx2.b-cdn.net/gfx/news/2017/tadpole.jpg
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How Body Size and Proportionality are Influenced by Climate Change

By: Cameron Ward, Kellie Guerette, Meghan Doherty, and Benjamin Clark
(Stonehill College, BIO323: Evolution, Fall 2023)

Overview

Climate change is defined as long-term shifts in temperatures and weather patterns. Shifts can be natural, however, since the 1800s, human activities have been the main driver primarily due to the burning of fossil fuels. An article titled, “Climate Change Predictive of Body Size and Proportionality in Humans”, discusses how these changes have impacted the evolution of the human body over time. A relationship has been established between climate change and the human body shape and size, driven by natural selection in response to thermoregulatory demands. The studies suggested that smaller bodies with more of their weight distributed to the limbs dissipate heat better than larger and more rotund bodies with less relative surface area. This leads to larger species (endomorphic) in cooler geographic regions and smaller (ectomorphic) in warmer climates. Fossil records have shown that this trend holds true for a variety of species. Invertebrates, insects, and mammals all shrunk during past periods of global warming. Periods of global cooling have had the opposite effect, in which species increased in size to become better fit for their environment. There are several factors that could lead to the observed changes in body weight/ proportionality, however, climate change seems to be a major driver.

A short podcast summarizing the article.
Continue reading “How Body Size and Proportionality are Influenced by Climate Change”