For her series “Shake“, pet photographer Carli Davidson photographed curious portraits of dogs shaking off water. Use a fast shutter speed and you can capture all kinds of strange expressions on your dog’s face.

You can find the rest of the photographs in the series here.
Shake (via Photojojo)
Image credits: Photographs by Carli Davidson and used with permission

In a remote valley in the mountains of Colorado, the marmot population has tripled over the past decade, but this may not ultimately be good news for the fat, furry, squirrel-like creatures.

Increasingly, short winters have meant that yellow-bellied marmots (Marmota flaviventris) near the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory now emerge 20 days earlier from their seven- to eight-month hibernation than they did in the late ’70s. This, in turn, has meant more time to get fat over the summer, less fat loss over the winter and, over the past decade, a huge spike in their survival and reproductive success.

“We believe that gradual change in climate crosses a threshold, and causes abrupt changes in population,” said biologist Arpat Ozgul from the Imperial College of London, lead author of a study on the marmots being published July 21 in Nature.

While these marmots have been getting gradually fatter since the study began in 1976, the population didn’t explode until 2000. Between 2000 and 2008, their numbers increased by 18 percent per year, which is very rapid for a mammal.

Researchers found a strong correlation between body mass and individual survival and reproduction, but are still working out why there was such a sudden change.

What sets this study apart is that the researchers have been tracking individual marmots (by painting different symbols on their backs, such as lightning bolts or diamonds) over the entire course of their lifetimes, for more than 30 years.

“This study presumably started before the impacts of climate change was a major motivation,” said biologist Murray Humphries from McGill University. “Now, 33 years later we have really important, detailed information on how climate change ripples into population impacts.”

While getting fatter and having a population boom sounds like a marmot heyday, warmer weather might not be so great for the cold-adapted alpine creatures in the long run.

“We strongly suspect that this is only a short-term response,” said Ozgul. “Marmots are adapted to cold environments and have a small tolerance for heat. If they are trapped under the sun for more than two hours they get heat stress and can die. Warmer days will limit their foraging times to the early morning and late afternoon, which could make them more susceptible to predators.”

“In the past couple years we’ve already started to see higher rates of predation, taking into account that there are more marmots overall,” Ozgul added.

“I’d be surprised if the population keeps growing, even if the summers keep getting longer,” echoed Humphries. “What goes up must come down.”

See Also:

Four-Winged Fossil Bridges Bird-Dinosaur Gap
Op-Ed: What Marmots Teach Us About Terrorism
Migratory Birds’ New Climate Change Strategy: Stay Home
Bats, Birds and Lizards Can Fight Climate Change
Video: Century-Old Taxidermy Yields Clues to Climate Future

Citation: “Coupled dynamics of body mass and population growth in response to environmental change” Nature, 21 July 2010

Images: 1) Yellow-bellied marmot pup in trap./Arpat Ozgul. 2) Standing marmot pup./Rachel Monclus.

Follow Jess McNally on Twitter @jessmcnally, and Wired Science @wiredscience.

We need a technological crackdown on feline wildlife carnage
Residents of a new housing estate in Hampshire are to be forbidden from keeping cats or dogs, on pain of eviction. The proposal is wildly unfair — to dogs and their owners. As far as cats are concerned, it's long overdue.
The number of cats kept in Britain has grown rapidly over the last few decades to perhaps nine million. Gardeners will be familiar with some of the consequences, but the impact on wildlife has been altogether more serious. A study by the Mammal Society found that what are now Britain's most abundant carnivores are probably killing at least 300 million wild animals and birds every year. Because they're fed by their owners, their depredations aren't reduced by their impact on their prey's populations, as would otherwise be the case.
Their 70 million feathered victims may not be the most important, though the survey found that hard-pressed species such as yellow wagtails, swifts and bullfinches were being taken. Cats, it emerged, could also be getting through four million frogs, 170,000 newts, 370,000 lizards, 700,000 slow-worms and 80,000 grass-snakes. They may be killing 230,000 bats a year: bats have not only become scarce, but have difficulty making up population losses, since an individual produces on average fewer than one youngster each season.
Owners are often unaware of the depredations wrought by their pets on their nightly forays over surprisingly large areas. When, however, one of their furry darlings kills the blackbird whose song used to make your day, don't expect an apology. Cat-lovers assume they've an inviolable right to force their neighbours and all the wildlife-lovers in their localities to put up with the grisly side-effects of their proclivity.
Dogs can pose a threat to wildlife, particularly to ground-nesting birds. They, however, can be controlled, and increasingly they are being. Part of the growing attraction of cats is that their owners are currently absolved from any duty to keep their pets' behaviour in check. It's about time we expected cat-owners to shoulder some of the responsibility that they owe towards our wildlife.
The Hampshire edict is designed to protect Dartford warblers, nightjars and woodlarks living on heathland near the proposed estate. Such restrictions should be routine in new developments within reach of the haunts of such scarce species. However, cat-owners whose pets threaten only the everyday wild creatures that brighten so many lives should also be expected to shape up.
House sparrows, starlings and song-thrushes have experienced dramatic declines in recent years. Gardens have become a particularly important habitat for them ever since agricultural intensification drove many of them out of the countryside, yet a study in one village found that cats were responsible for 30 per cent of house sparrow mortality.
A cat curfew would be a reasonable step forward. Enforcement would probably require cats to be implanted with electronic chips. Dog-owners are increasingly embracing this technology, however: there's no reason why cat-owners shouldn't be expected to do likewise. Nonetheless, until such a scheme can come into effect, more immediate action is required.
Wildlife kills can be reduced by up to 53 per cent if cats wear devices on their collars designed to inhibit hunting success, according to a study by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. Some other studies suggest that the bells of legend may not be the most suitable instruments for this purpose. The extra effort they force cats to take may actually increase their hunting prowess. However, new technology is making more effective techniques available.
Electronic warning devices, such as battery powered alarms or lights activated when cats pounce, have been shown to reduce feline predation by between 38 and 51 per cent. Collars emitting sonic warnings are now widely on sale. You can buy one for £12.99. For those who prefer a lower-tech solution, even simpler options are on hand.
A bird-loving cat-owner in Oregon has invented a device called the CatBib. It's made of neoprene, a tear-resistant synthetic fabric, and attached to a cat's collar with velcro, so it will come off if it gets snagged. It provides a visual warning to prey, and gets in the way of pouncing paws. A study in Australia, where the threat to wildlife from cats is taken more seriously than it is in Britain, found that CatBibs helped stop 81 per cent of cats from catching birds, 45 per cent from catching mammals and 33 per cent from catching reptiles and amphibians.
CatBibs, like sonic collars, are readily available to cat-owners, but not many of them seem to be interested. Apparently, they don't want anything to interfere with their pets' fun. Collar restraints for cats should therefore be made compulsory.
ConservationPetsAnimalsWildlifeDavid Coxguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

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