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

ABC News Local ^ | April 16, 2018 | by Seth Borenstein, AP Science Writer

[Oldeconomybuyer]

Washington – 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.

“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.

Because of the small number of species involved in small areas over different studies, Kharouba’s team could not find a statistically significant link between temperature and changes in how species sync together. But what she saw, she said, “is consistent with climate change.”

[Trillian]

Yes, it’s good served over bread, biscuits or pancakes. It’s an old southern recipe my mil taught me how to make.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

Yeah. We just had 2 inches of snow.

[perfect stranger]

Do you have a recipe?

[Trillian]

Dice up two packages of hot dogs and fry for a few minutes in a few tablespoons of bacon grease. Remove hotdogs and mix equal parts flour with the fat and whisk. Slowly add equal parts beef broth and milk. Whisk constantly until mixture gets thick and a gravy forms. Add in hotdogs and stir for a few minutes over heat. Serve over pancakes, bread or biscuits.