The human-generated increase in greenhouse gases (see Module 38.3) provides many opportunities to study the effects of climate change. For example, snowshoe hares are adapted to the climate of their habitat in the taiga of the high mountains and northern regions of North America. One adaptation is seasonal changes in fur color—a white winter coat that turns brown in the spring—that camouflage hares from a long list of predators. These color changes are triggered by day length. As increasing spring temperatures cause earlier snowmelt in the taiga, biologists have observed many white hares sitting on brown earth. Suggest how this natural experiment could be used to investigate the effects of climate change on populations and communities in the taiga ecosystem (assume historical data are available).

Question

Accepted Answer

Welcome back everyone. Let's look at our next problem. It says the proportion of dark colored moths in Manchester was recorded At 98% in 1895, a significant increase from the initial frequency. By the middle of the 19th century, there had been a significant increase in the number of dark colored moths. This phenomenon is known as when we look at our answer choices, we should notice that choice d. Is all of the above. So there is the potential that we have more than one correct answer. So let's recall from our content video the story of the moths in Manchester. Um Manchester was a famous industrial area in England during the Industrial Revolution, it developed very rapidly into a city with lots and lots of factories producing lots of smoke, lots of pollution. And in an area there were moths that initially majority of them were light colored and they often rested on trees with light colored bark which gave them camouflage against their predators which were birds. But during the Industrial Revolution the bark color of those trees actually darkened due to pollution in the air with darker bar colors. The dark colored moths now have an advantage. They are better camouflaged. And people that were observing these moths began to see the darker colored moths increased more and more and more as a percentage of the population until as our problem tells us, by 18 95 98% of that species were dark colored. So you actually saw industrialization having effect on the actual color of a species. So this is always a very interesting story about natural selection and the effect of these external industrial factors that you wouldn't always think would affect um natural phenomena. So when we look at our answer choices again, Choice B. Is industrial melon is um and that is the name of this phenomenon of the word industrial. It's the effect of industrialization on the color of an organism. Because of course melanin gives that color. Um when we look at our other answer choices, Choice A as the Industrial Revolution. Um Well that's the time period when this took place, it's not the phenomenon of the changing color itself. That was of course that period of time when this rapid industrialization and urbanization of formerly rural areas. So all of this took place during the Industrial Revolution, but that's not the term for the changing color. So that's not our answer. And therefore Choice D all of the above is also not our answer and choice E says the Green Revolution. Well, this was the revolution in agricultural technology taking place after World War Two Through the 1980s. And it led to great increases in crop yields and agricultural output. But that isn't what caused the change in the moth population. Um that happened during the Industrial Revolution. And that phenomenon is called choice B Industrial melon is um And that's our answer for this problem. I hope to see you in the next video

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Key Concepts

Climate Change and Ecosystem Dynamics

Adaptation and Phenotypic Plasticity

Natural Experiments and Historical Data