So we know that in a lab setting at higher temperatures, insects reach
maturity sooner -- resulting in smaller adult body size. And given that global
temperatures have increased over the past century we were curious whether we
see similar trends in nature.
As a part of our insect ecology class we measured
body size of beetles to see if they have changed over time.
We measured 6,500 beetles across eight species from the Beaty Biodiversity
Museum collection.
And we photographed each box with a ruler next to it for
scale. We measured the body size using a computer software and we noted when and
where they were collected. All this information was analyzed with climate
data using statistics.
The largest species of beetles have shrunk about 20 per cent
over the last 45 years. When we added the climate data to our analysis we realized
that the warming temperatures have contributed to the shrinkage of beetle
body sizes.
Beetles are one of the most widespread and diverse groups of animals
on earth. They're found in almost all ecosystems and they play very important
roles -- for instance in pest control -- so now that we know that beetles are
shrinking we need to do more research to determine the effect of shrinking
beetles in nature and if other organisms are shrinking as well.
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