The grolar effect: How climate change is creating hybrid species
Read about global warming's little monsters, swimming to stop waste colonialism, and a mushroom walk on Staten Island.
Climate Fact: The last decade was the hottest it’s been on planet earth in the past 125,000 years.
The grolar effect: How climate change is creating hybrid species
Our warming world is getting weird. One development that has left scientists scratching their heads is gene exchanges between animals leading to new hybrid species.
The grolar bear or pizzly (the offspring of a polar bear and grizzly bear) was first found in the wild after the distinctive-looking animal was shot by a hunter on Banks Island in the Canadian Arctic in 2006. Hybrids of golden-winged and blue-winged warblers have appeared in the American Northeast and Canada. Researchers have also found crossbreeds of Australian and common blacktips in shark populations off the northeast coast of Australia.
Interbreeding between animal species isn’t new and has been happening for millennia, but climate change is creating new opportunities for gene mixing. Animal habitats are shifting due to warming temperatures putting roughly half of the world’s 4,000 species on the move, the majority heading northwards towards cooler climes. Removal of physical barriers like the melting of ice sheets and changes to terrain due to natural disasters such as flooding and wildfires has also facilitated new interactions between species.
“As we’ve developed genomic methodologies, we’re finding that organisms are exchanging genes with other species,” said Michael Arnold, a professor of genetics at the University of Georgia, for Scientific American. “Genetic exchange due to organisms coming together from climate change is the rule rather than the exception.”
Gene mixing is not only leading to new physical traits but behavioral ones as well. Mark Scriber, a professor at Michigan State University studying swallowtail butterflies, found hybrids in America’s northern ranges eating plants previously only ingested by southern swallowtail species. He also discovered these hybrids in the north had a delayed mating cycle. The butterflies were too late to breed with the previous generation and too early for the next. Only able to breed with their own generation, a new butterfly species was formed.
Genetic hybrids follow the course of evolution. Species will continue to do what they have always done, adapting to survive in response to their environment. Some have said these genetic adaptions could even help species weather the perils of our changing world. Evolution is a long slow process, and the pace at which species are changing is a significant concern.
“The climate warming that we have induced is closer to a meteor strike [for species] than to the gradual evolution of green plants,” said Brendan Kelly, executive director of the Study of Environmental Arctic Change, for Audubon. “We’re forcing change to happen so quickly that it is more likely to promote extinctions than provide adaptive responses.”
Species adaptions have left scientists and conservationists to juggle some complex questions. Should hybrid animals be protected if only one parent is an endangered species? Does it matter if pure-breed species disappear in the process of hybridization? Should we even get involved in this evolutionary process, or should nature lead the way along the already human-tinkered course?
Environmental artist highlight
The Volta River is the longest in Ghana, flowing south from the Bobo-Dioulasso highlands of Burkina Faso into the Gulf of Guinea. While providing the surrounding communities with essential resources and a mode of transposition for generations, the river has become contaminated by synthetic microfibers and textile materials.
Over four weeks from March into April, the Agbetsi Living Water project will be traversing down the river on a research expedition to better understand the impact of pollution in the waterway. As part of the expedition, Yvette Tetteh will be swimming the length of the river to bring awareness to the severity of the issue.
“Our goal is to swim these waters again,” writes Yvette Tetteh in an article for Atmos. “It is a ludicrous and invigorating idea that hinges on our capacity to move through fear and the perception of powerlessness to enact change. We are acting to stop waste colonialism and its disastrous impact on our environment and people.”
For more on the project read “Why I Am Swimming 450km To Help Stop Waste Colonialism” and watch the video below:
News flash
In a previous newsletter, I told you all about how fungi are on the climate frontlines after an excursion with The New York Mycological Society piqued my interest in our fungal friends. Last week, I published a piece about my adventure with Scienceline, a publication run by the Science, Health, and Environmental Reporting Program (SHERP) at NYU.
For the full article read, “A Mushroom Walk on Staten Island.”
News update:
Seaweed is having a climate moment.
Not to be dramatic, but what does the sixth and final report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) mean for the future of humanity?
Should the government stop paying us to make bad climate decisions?
Warming weather is worsening annual pollen seasons.
Record snowfall in California has buried snow lifts.
In Atlanta, “Cop City” is provoking protests and environmental justice concerns.
A new climate drama Extrapolations featuring Meryl Streep as a whale is out now on Apple TV.
No more forever chemicals in drinking water said the EPA.
Black vultures in Midtown and other ways climate change is affecting New York City’s avian occupants.
In Montana, kids are suing the state over climate change.
Crypto is dead, but its carbon emissions are not.
In case you were wondering:
Book Updates
This year I self-published two books of visual poetry with Tell Tell Poetry, an independent publishing service. Figures of Speech and beeing are now available for purchase on Lulu! With your purchase of beeing, 15% will be donated to the Women’s Earth Alliance, an organization that supports women developing solutions to climate change.
To purchase my books go to my website here!!
To learn more about Women’s Earth Alliance check out their website here!!
To follow the life of my little books follow @meryl.phair on Instagram!!
Thought food
“A vibrant, fair, and regenerative future is possible — not when thousands of people do climate justice activism perfectly but when millions of people do the best they can.”
~ Xiye Bastida (climate justice activist of the Indigenous Otomi community)