Jan.
8, 2013 — Speculation about how animals will respond to climate change due
to global warming led University of Illinois researcher Patrick Weatherhead and
his students to conduct a study of ratsnakes at three different latitudes --
Ontario, Illinois, and Texas. His findings suggest that ratsnakes will be able
to adapt to the higher temperatures by becoming more active at night.
"Ratsnakes
are a species with a broad geographic range so we could use latitude as a
surrogate for climate change," Weatherhead said. "What are ratsnakes
in Illinois going to be dealing with given the projections for how much warmer
it will be 50 years from now? Well, go to Texas and find out. That's what
they're dealing with now. Snakes are ectotherms, that is, they use the
environment to regulate their body temperature. We were able to compare
ratsnakes' ability to regulate their temperature in Texas as compared to
Illinois and Canada."
The
research showed that ratsnakes in Canada, Illinois, and Texas would all benefit
from global warming. "It would actually make the environment thermally
better for them," Weatherhead said. "Texas is already too hot for
much of the day so it may cause them to shift to even more nocturnal foraging
there and stay active at night for more of the season."
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