Friday, 15 June 2018

Here Comes the Night!


A Berkeley study on 62 wild Mammal species from across the planet has suggested that most of these animals are becoming more nocturnal when faced with local human activity (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/jun/14/human-activity-making-mammals-more-nocturnal-study-finds). Avoiding the planet's most dangerous predator might not be a bad idea. It would be interesting to know if the animals involved have individually adopted this life-style (possibly to minimise disturbance in the same way that insect-eating bats avoid birds in the daytime) or whether members of these species that are more active 'after hours' are more likely to survive and breed (i.e. the change is currently being selected). These changes in nocturnal activity could have wide-ranging influences on the species (and other animals in the same environments). For example, it could alter the efficiency and duration of feeding or the availability .

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