As the weather in northern climates continues to change it becomes more important to the effects of the change on local species. The ability of theses northern species to adapted affects their survival s. Arctic foxes are one of the main predators of the terrestrial arctic ecosystem. Foxes main prey consists of small rodents, birds and their eggs in the summer and spring. Arctic foxes travel large distances searching for prey, averaging 29 km a day. (http://www.osti.gov/scitech/biblio/5927638). Many studies have been done on how food and resource abundance affects the foraging patterns, but not many studies have been done on how weather patterns and changing climate may be affecting the arctic foxes. One concern is that annual spring and summer …show more content…
Fox’s foraging technique is to only eat between 2-6 % of eggs they find immediately after discovering the nest and cache the rest of them for later consumption. (Samelius and Alisauskas, 2000). My project aims to look at whether variations in summer weather temperatures affects the foraging success of Arctic foxes. Since increasing temperatures should theoretically cause foxes to allocate less energy to keeping warm it is expected that there will be an increase in foraging time with an increase in temperature. This will result in more depredation events occurring in higher temperatures. In addition increasing temperature should cause an increase in food finding as noticed by increase in food …show more content…
If the results show temperature does affect the forging habit of arctic foxes this could have detrimental impacts on the balance of the Artic ecosystem. The changing temperature could have implications the longer term stability of the Arctic fox population. If rising temperatures cause an increase in the fox’s ability to find bountiful food supplies, it could cause a population burst resulting in overpopulation of the foxes. A very common example of this is of White tailed deer in North America. Deer became overabundant due to a surplus of food from agriculture, causing a large population growth resulting in over population. This overpopulation has caused damages to the ecosystem due to it increasing for more food resources. This over grazing resulted in a dramatic disappearance much of the local vegetation species as well as an increase in the mortality of the deer due to starvation from the resultant habitat loss. (https://books.google.ca/books?hl=en&lr=&id=gJE6JTNHd_UC&oi=fnd&pg=PA119&dq=overpopulation+due+to+prey+abundance&ots=4gP3mEDG1z&sig=21tjsofihVROZ_Txk3C8FoGHm2c#v=onepage&q=overpopulation%20due%20to%20prey%20abundance&f=false) . This resource instability may occur in Artic foxes due to overpopulation threatening the prey species of the Arctic Foxes. Arctic breeding shorebirds could be at risk due to the over population of Arctic Foxes. With more Arctic foxes there
Isle Royal is located fifty-six miles north of Michigan’s Keweenaw Peninsula. It is the largest wilderness area in Michigan (USNPS, 2014). The island is surrounded by Lake Superior, which creates a cooler temperature. This results in arctic plant species growth on the island. There are only eighteen mammal species present on the island because most mammals cannot make the trip across the frozen great lake (USNPS, 2014). The need for an ice bridge is not the only environmental factor that is stopping the migration of animals; there is also the severe cold, and also wind and fog (Vucetich, 2012). Some species such as caribou and coyote have found the island to be too intense and have gone extinct (Vucetich, 2012). Due to the harsh weather and isolation of the island, humans have never regularly lived on the island (Vucetich, 2012). Some of species that are present such as the red squirrel are becoming their own subspecies due to its separation from the mainland (USNPS, 2014). The isolation of Isle Royal is what makes it a great place to conduct research, it has very low human interaction and the species that are on the island will have been and continue to be isolated from the mainland.
Gray Wolf Optimization Gray wolf optimization is presented in the following subsections based on the work in [13]. 1) Inspiration: Grey wolves are considered as apex predators, meaning that they are at the top of the food chain. Grey wolves mostly prefer to live in a pack. The group size is 512 on average. They have a very strict social dominant hierarchy.
Not many people know about the arctic wolf, it is the snowy white version of a wolf. They have a really big appite when it comes to eating. They most only eat one meal a day and eat up to 20 pounds in that one meal. They are mostly carnivores; they mainly eat big animals like the caribou and the musk ox so they can feed themselves and the whole pack (Arctic/Antarctic: The Arctic Wolf). People eat up to three meals a day, but wolves can go up to days with out eating a single thing (Arctic/Antarctic: The Arctic Wolf). When wolves are hunting they have to be able to have a plan to catch their food. Wolves would get all the pack members that are hunting to surround the animal, and pounces on them. One bit to the neck and the animal would be dead. When they are eating they will eat everything, like the meat, shin, fur and bone (Arctic/Antarctic: The Arctic Wolf). Also Arctic wolves can live up to 20 years in captivity, while they can only live 7- 15 years in the wild (Arctic/Antarctic: The Arctic Wolf). Arctic wolves are one of the most prettiest and unique types of wolf. When Arctic wolves are pups t...
The climate of the tundra is characterized by harsh winters. The average temperature in the tundra area is about –27 degrees. But what is even worse are the long night. At nights the lowest temperture recorded was –67.36 degrees. There are even times in the year when the sun doesn’t come up for days. In the tundra we have little snow and even less rainfall. The rainfall is about a quarter inch in a yearly rainfall. Even though the tundra’s winters are long a harsh there summers are the shortest season of all. Do to the terrible weather and climate in the tundra their animals and plant life is very limited.
Being completely capable of inhabiting almost any environmental condition, the red fox is very widespread throughout its distribution in the northern hemisphere. Red fox tend to favor the fragmented and open landscapes that are common throughout the heavily cultivated and developed northern temperate regions because of the increased availability of cover, food, and den sites. Established populations in tundra and desert regions, as well as even urban environments, exemplify the wide-ranging abilities of this species to survive and be fecund. The tropics and unavailable niches due to occupancy by other meso-carnivores seem to be the only physical barriers and restrictions to the distribution of red foxes. (Invasive Species Specialist Group 2010). Isolation caused by the tropic climates in southeast Asia and island geography naturally secluded red foxes from inhabiting Australia, Tasmania, and New Zealand, but European colonization of the Oceania region led to the introduction of the species to an ecosystem primed to be exploited.
Every play written uses dramatic elements. The main dramatic elements are plot, character, theme, and language. Lillian Hellman, who wrote the Little Foxes, incorporates these elements beautifully in her play. The play is set during the spring of 1900 and takes place in the Deep South part of the United States of America. Just as every other play, the Little Foxes has included the dramatic elements in her play, particularly the plot, character, and language that all incorporate an underlying theme of greed.
Animal spirits are a product of irrational behavior and are a major driving force in the economy. Intuitive then is the notion that animal spirits are also heavily involved in the process of economic boom and bust cycles. This much is straightforward and in reality seems to be the case. Animal spirits, which were initially defined by John Maynard Keynes, characterizes a variety of exogenous variables that could not be accounted for in the mainstream rational economic theories of the time. This definition was later reclassified by Akerlof and Shiller in their title book and provided some of the mechanics behind seemingly irrational behaviors. Akerlof and Shiller described and highlighted five specific features of animal spirits that affect the
Everyone has a family member, friend, or beloved pet so sick you were not sure if they would live or die, and you find out about a new surgery procedure or medicine available to save them. Have you ever wondered where these new surgery procedures or medicines come from? When you think about all the major medical advancements over the last few decades and beyond, it has depended on animal research. As research moves into the future, we need to understand how the body works and how diseases progress. We need to find ways to treat, cure, or prevent disease and disability. The use of animal research is providing us with new technologies and medicines, which are benefiting both humans and animals in treating and extending lives.
Whales are some of the ocean’s most fascinating amphibious beings. They possess highly acquired communication skills and are believed to have an intelligence level equal to, and in some species, surpass that of the human brain. The biological, anthropological, and marine educational communities have studied the whale in a way that sheds light onto the studies of evolution as well. Yet, there are industries that subject these animals to captivity, hindering the natural development of these animals. Of all the communities contributing to the protection and study of the whale, there is one tipping the scale towards exploiting it for profit: The entertainment industry.
Global warming has become a more prominent issue every decade since the mid 1900s. The increased temperatures are leading to substantial ice loss. This loss in ice is causing severe destruction to polar bear habitats and homes and is leading to their extinction. It also is affecting their food supply. Global warming is making it harder for polar bears to repopulate and is causing a decrease in the overall size of each bear. The chemicals associated with global warming are getting into the food chain and eventually into the polar bears themselves. Global warming is causing the extinction of polar bears in the arctic because it’s destroying their homes, decreasing their food supply, is affecting chemicals in the air and in their food, decreasing the average size of the bears, and contributes to a decrease in reproduction.
Studies show that wolves play a significant role in maintaining healthy ecosystems, and could even help stave off some of the effects of climate change. They help keep large animal herd populations in check, which can benefit numerous other plan...
"The Consequences of Global WarmingOn Wildlife." Consequences of Global Warming. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Feb. 2014. .
For years studies and observations have been made on the relationship between body size and physical orientation of an animal. In 1847 Carl Bergmann was one of the first to do observations with this phenomenon (Dictionary of Theories 2002). Bergmann noticed that warm-blooded animals living at climates high in latitude are bigger in size than those living in climates of lower latitudes (Dictionary of Theories 2002). Research has shown there is a correlation of surface area to volume in animals that are located in different parts of the globe. Animals living in a cooler climate have a larger volume, but decreased surface area to retain as much body heat as possible. The inverse is true for animals living in warmer regions; these animals have a smaller volume and larger surface area to allow the body to cool efficiently (McNab 1971). Bergmann’s rule has brought valuable insight into the study of character traits and how we identify where animals originated. One example that I came across is with the Andean passerine bird, a study was done in 1991 by G. R. Graves. He noticed the size of ...
Whales are notable for being mammals which are fully adapted to oceanic life. These are three groups of Whales in their phylogenetic tree; Archaeocetes, Mysticeti and Odontoceti. The first group are known from their fossils and are seen to be a transitionary form as they retained a number of features associated with land mammals e.g. hind limbs with feet and limbs. The two other groups diverged around the start of the Oligocene; when the ice caps started to grow in the poles of the earth. It has been suggested that this may be due to the rise of seasonal planktonic production which could have led to specialisation (Houben, 2013); this ties in nicely with other summarisations which link the diversions of Whales in this time period. Mysticeti and Odontoceti differ on two counts; Mysticeti possess baleen making them filter feeders of plankton, in comparison Odontoceti possess a single set of teeth and have the ability to echolocate.
One huge impact of global warming is the change in animals’ habitats. When the earth’s temperature is increasing, it creates the change of weather conditions in a certain area, which causes some kinds of animals in this area to live with many difficulties, or sometimes those kinds of animals are forced to move to new region when they cannot handle the difficulties. The arctic fox is an example for this situation. According to the article “How Does Global Warming Affect Wildlife,” arctic foxes prefer to live in the cooler environment while their habitat is getting warmer and warmer due to global warming, so arctic foxes have to leave their own home to seek a more suitable area (National W...