Evolution Getting Out Of Hand

Temperature is changing 100 times faster than it has been in 320,000 years. As the temperature changes, species adapt accordingly but now it has become difficult. According to earlier research temperature change is faster than species can adapt. 

Latest research conducted by Indiana University specifically focuses on North American rattlesnakes and suggests that the rate of future change in suitable habitat will be two to three orders of magnitude greater than the average change over the past 300 millennia - a time that included three major glacial cycles and significant variation in climate and temperature.

Michelle Lawing, a doctoral candidate in geological sciences and biology at Indiana University and lead author of study says: 

“We find that, over the next 90 years, at best these species’ ranges will change more than 100 times faster than they have during the past 320,000 years,” “This rate of change is unlike anything these species have experienced, probably since their formation.”

Rattlesnake ranges have moved an average of only 2.3 meters a year over last 320,000 years. Tolerance of these rattlesnakes to climate have evolved about 100 to 1,000 times slower.

Study suggests snakes wont be able to cope up with the environment. 

Rattlsnakes are good indicators of climate change because they are ectotherms, which depend on the environment to regulate their body temperatures.


Read original study here.