There is plenty of evidence that animals, birds, and insects have adapted to their natural environment, which has spread over millions of years through the process of evolution. The two most notable Victorians who discovered this were Charles Darwin and his equal, Alfred Wallace. Since the advent of the modern Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions, which have taken place over the past 250 years, it is nigh impossible to give an estimate of lost species globally as records and scientific accounts have only been seriously tracked for the past 50 years.
The major difficulty of species extinction is the increasing loss of habitat and the speed of climate change. While some animals may have adapted, others, unfortunately, will not. Some species of frogs and butterflies are just two to name out of possibly hundreds if not thousands of varieties that have already vanished, and others will in the future. Yet all might not be lost as we shall see.
In Scotland in the far north on the island of Orkney during the 19th century, the Lord of the Isle stocked a rare breed of Northern European short-tail sheep. This breed became known locally as North Ronaldsay Sheep, which adapted well to the harsh environment. However, like his mainland cousins, it was later decided to rid the animals for cattle by building a high stone wall around the whole island to block out pastures for the sheep. With their territory reduced to tracks along the foreshore gradually over time, the sheep found a licking to a nutritious food source, which still exists today of seaweed, which is helping to continue the stock.
Surprising as this may seem, with so many reports of coral bleaching due to rising sea temperatures along the Great Barrier Reef, one species of coral might come to the rescue. Admittedly, this appears to have worked well under laboratory conditions. Genetically, corals found in cooler pools had a greater advantage than their table cousins from hot pools. Be as it may, scientists could well use genetic material from other sources and clone them to produce more heat-tolerant species. Time will tell, of course.
Darwin’s observation of bird and reptile species found only on the Galapagos Islands in the Pacific have been well documented and it is now thought that marine iguanas continue to adapt. How they do this is linked to their food source and fluctuations in sea temperature. In times of stress, these creatures can shrink their body length and, with improved situations, increase their length by as much as 20%. If this is true for these reptiles perhaps other species on our planet might also could adapt in the future.
In Australia, there is evidence of adaption, including vinegar flies, of which there are two forms: the tropical and the temperate. It appears that the tropical has become more common, which is not surprising. In southern Australia female butterflies are emerging earlier and speeding up their growth by as much as 1.6 days every decade. This is partly due to earlier plant growth. Sorry folks, there’s nothing to report on the males! And finally, there are now several fish stocks that have moved south from the Tasman across the Bass Strait to survive rising seawater temperatures, which bodes well for them, but for how long for our local fish?
In parts of Europe, brown and the lighter brown Tawny Owls are not uncommon. However, observers in Finland have noticed with milder winters due to climate change and less snow there appears to be more brown owls. It is speculated these birds have improved adaption and survival, blending into darker forests than their lighter cousins, who in the past fitted better in snow lying areas which have begun to disappear.
And there is one animal that needs consideration, and that is homo erectus. It is well known that older people are less tolerant to extremes of cold and heat. With this in mind, especially with rising temperatures, many folk have become climate refugees heading south from the mainland to a cooler Tasmania. Your writer is one of them. Is this a form of adaptation or just a sneaky way of getting out of the intolerable heat and escaping from the increasing use of the air conditioner? We may smile or laugh, but how many people can this Isle support in the next few years will be interesting, to say the least. Aboriginal peoples lived through climate changes and modified their environments, as we well know. Can we modern humans adapt?