• About
    • Which Energy Mix is this?
  • Climate News Network Archive
  • Contact
The climate news that makes a difference.
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
  FEATURED
BP Predicts Faster Oil and Gas Decline as Clean Energy Spending Hits $1.1T in 2022 January 31, 2023
Canada Needs Oil and Gas Emissions Cap to Hit 2030 Goal: NZAB January 31, 2023
Ecuador’s Amazon Drilling Plan Shows Need for Fossil Non-Proliferation Treaty January 31, 2023
Rainforest Carbon Credits from World’s Biggest Provider are ‘Largely Worthless’, Investigation Finds January 31, 2023
Danske Bank Quits New Fossil Fuel Financing January 23, 2023
Next
Prev

Warming dulls US rats’ taste for toxins

January 20, 2016
Reading time: 3 minutes
Primary Author: Tim Radford

 

Herbivores such as desert woodrats are being forced to change eating habits as rising temperatures are making their usual diet of toxic plants unpalatable.

LONDON, 20 January, 2016 – The desert woodrat of the US west doesn’t care for its meals to be served hot. That is because, as the temperatures go up, it tends to lose much appetite for its favourite lunch − the creosote bush in the Mojave desert.

  • Be among the first to read The Energy Mix Weekender
  • A brand new weekly digest containing exclusive and essential climate stories from around the world.
  • The Weekender:The climate news you need.
New!
Subscribe

When the heat is on, the capacity of the rodent (Neotoma lepida) to cope with toxins diminishes. And since almost all plants produce some kind of chemical defence against predation, a new study suggests that global warming could create dietary or digestive problems for herbivores of the mammal world.

Either the levels of plant toxins increase with the rise in global average temperatures as carbon dioxide levels rise in the atmosphere, because of increasing human combustion of fossil fuels or, as temperatures rise, the capacity of animals to digest those toxins decreases.

Either way, there are problems. “The phenomenon will result in animals changing their diets and reducing the amount of plant material they eat, relocating to cooler habitats or going extinct in local areas,” said Denise Dearing, professor and chair in the Department of Biology at the University of Utah.

Preferred food sources

Her co-author, biologist Patrice Kurnath, says: “We found that desert woodrats have a harder time eating their natural diet at slightly warmer temperatures. In terms of climate changes, this study suggests that plant-eating animals all over the world may have problems dealing with their preferred food sources.”

The 16th-century sage Paracelsus is supposed to have formulated the doctrine “it is the dose that makes the poison”, with the argument that everything is toxic if you consume too much.

Zoologists subscribe to a “detoxification limitation hypothesis”, which says that plants naturally produce secondary compounds as evolutionary protection against consumption by herbivores, and herbivores have in turn evolved behavioural and physiological countermeasures either to avoid, metabolise or tolerate these compounds.

“As the climate warms, herbivores may face
even more restricted menu choices”

But it follows that there must be a limit to this consumption. And the Utah scientists report in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B that they have established the maximum ingestion of the creosote bush (Larrea tridentate) that woodrats can manage at temperatures of around 28° to 29°C, and at 21° to 22°C.

The bush makes up threequarters of the woodrat’s diet, whereas other rodents would die, or at least develop kidney cysts, on a similar diet. Other research has shown that, at warmer temperatures, the liver function needed to process toxins was reduced.

“At the warm temperature, woodrats ingested significantly less creosote resin; their maximum dose was two-thirds that of animals at the cool temperature,” the authors report.

Obliterating habitats

Researchers have repeatedly warned that man-made climate change, driven by global warming, threatens increasing numbers of species with extinction by altering or obliterating habitats, or by changing the synchronicity of food supply and breeding seasons.

What the Utah scientists have identified is another component of the possible cocktail of existential threats. Rabbits, marmots, deer, moose, elk, sheep, horses and even cows have diets that include toxic plants.

Research has established that koalas in Australia and possums reduce consumption to avoid toxic overdoses. Other studies have shown that white-throated woodrats eat more juniper – also toxic – at cooler temperatures.

“The mechanism that makes it more difficult for woodrats to consume toxic diets at warmer temperatures likely is not restricted solely to woodrats, and applies to plant-eating mammals in general,” Professor Dearing says.

“As the climate warms, herbivores may face even more restricted menu choices.” – Climate News Network



in Climate News Network

The latest climate news and analysis, direct to your inbox

Subscribe

Related Posts

U.S. Geological Survey/wikimedia commons
Biodiversity & Habitat

Climate Change Amplifies Risk of ‘Insect Apocalypse’

December 1, 2022
43
Alaa Abd El-Fatah/wikimedia commons
COP Conferences

Rights Abuses, Intrusive Conference App Put Egypt Under Spotlight as COP 27 Host

November 14, 2022
26
Western Arctic National Parklands/wikimedia commons
Arctic & Antarctica

Arctic Wildfires Show Approach of New Climate Feedback Loop

January 2, 2023
28

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.

Trending Stories

RL0919/wikimedia commons

Danske Bank Quits New Fossil Fuel Financing

January 23, 2023
2.4k
Mike Mozart/Flickr

BP Predicts Faster Oil and Gas Decline as Clean Energy Spending Hits $1.1T in 2022

February 4, 2023
329
Sam Balto/YouTube

Elementary School’s Bike Bus Brings ‘Sheer Joy’ to Portland Neighbourhood

October 16, 2022
261

Recent Posts

Gina Dittmer/PublicDomainPictures

Canada Needs Oil and Gas Emissions Cap to Hit 2030 Goal: NZAB

January 31, 2023
196
CONFENIAE

Ecuador’s Amazon Drilling Plan Shows Need for Fossil Non-Proliferation Treaty

January 31, 2023
61
Ken Teegardin www.SeniorLiving.Org/flickr

Virtual Power Plants Hit an ‘Inflection Point’

January 31, 2023
125
/snappy goat

Rainforest Carbon Credits from World’s Biggest Provider are ‘Largely Worthless’, Investigation Finds

January 31, 2023
94
Victorgrigas/wikimedia commons

World Bank Climate Reforms Too ‘Timid and Slow,’ Critics Warn

January 31, 2023
42
Doc Searls/Twitter

Guilbeault Could Intervene on Ontario Greenbelt Development

January 31, 2023
132
Next Post

Carbon capture plans need urgent aid

The Energy Mix - The climate news you need

Copyright 2023 © Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy and Copyright
  • Cookie Policy

Proudly partnering with…

scf_withtagline
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}