Global warming is mixing up nature's dinner time, study says

April 16, 2018 by Seth Borenstein

Global warming is screwing up nature's intricately timed dinner hour, often making hungry critters and those on the menu show up at much different times, a new study shows.

Timing is everything in nature. Bees have to be around and flowers have to bloom at the same time for pollination to work, and hawks need to migrate at the same time as their prey. In many cases, global warming is interfering with that timing, scientists said.

A first-of-its-kind global mega analysis on the biological timing of 88 species that rely on another life form shows that on average species are moving out of sync by about six days a decade, although some pairs are actually moving closer together.

While other studies have looked at individual pairs of species and how warming temperatures have changed their migration, breeding and other timing, the study in Monday's Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences gives the first global look at a worsening timing problem.

These changes in species timing are considerably greater than they were before the 1980s, the study said.

"There isn't really any clear indication that it is going to slow down or stop in the near future," said study lead author Heather Kharouba, an ecologist at the University of Ottawa.

For example in the Netherlands, the Eurasian sparrow hawk has been late for dinner because its prey, the blue tit, has—over 16 years—arrived almost six days earlier than the hawk.

It's most noticeable and crucial in Washington state's Lake Washington, where over the past 25 years, plant plankton are now blooming 34 days earlier than the zooplankton that eat them. That's crucial because that's messing with the bottom of the food chain, Kharouba said.

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Fish Diseases Threaten Food Supply In Warm Climates

(ISNS) -- A rise in fish farms has meant cheap, fast-growing protein to feed the world's growing human population. But a new study suggests that countries located at lower latitudes – many of which rely heavily on fish farming – may be most at risk for fish disease outbreaks. The tropical environments in countries near the equator are ripe for breeding waterborne pathogens. 

Aquaculture, the technical term for the farming of aquatic plants and animals, is the fastest-growing agricultural industry in the world. The term refers to farming in all sorts of water environments, including ponds, rivers, lakes and controlled areas in the ocean. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, more than 90 percent of these fish farms are located in developing countries, which often have warm, tropical environments, conducive to raising fish year-round. 

A study published earlier this year in the Journal of Applied Ecology, however, shows that operations near the equator are also more prone to dangerous and rapid disease outbreaks that could wipe out entire stocks of fish.

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