<div style="margin: 12px 0px; font-family: arial; color: #333333; background: #ffffff; border: solid 4px #e5e5e5; width: 100%; clear: left;"><div class="CM_CTB_Content_Wrap" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;background-color: #ffffff;"><div style="border-bottom: solid 1px #dcdcdc; white-space: nowrap; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: #eeeeee ;background-image: url(http://clipmarks.com/images/source-bg.gif); background-repeat: repeat-x; height: 24px; line-height: 24px; vertical-align: middle; padding-bottom: 4px; color: #666666; font-size: 10px;" ><a href="http://clipmarks.com/clip-to-blog/" title="see clips that are hot right now"><img src="http://content.clipmarks.com/blog_embed/ca1feb25-e396-4166-bab7-58178163bcce/AD286602-2274-449E-BE2F-EEB64F7B7FBE/" alt="" width="19" height="19" border="0" style="vertical-align: middle; margin: 0px 4px; display: inline; border: none; float:none;" /></a>clipped from <a title="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2009/08/12/will-all-animals-shrink-under-a-warmer-climate/" href="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2009/08/12/will-all-animals-shrink-under-a-warmer-climate/" style="font-size: 11px;">blogs.discovermagazine.com</a></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2009/08/12/will-all-animals-shrink-under-a-warmer-climate/"><P><IMG align="left" alt="jacky winter bird" src="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/files/2009/08/jacky-winter-birdweb.jpg" />Rising temperatures in Australia have caused <A href="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/tag/birds/">birds</A> on that continent to shrink–some by nearly 4 percent. The findings of a study published in the journal <EM>Proceedings of the Royal Society B</EM> are the first to show that birds’ sizes are affected by global warming, although this phenomenon previously has been shown in fish and <A href="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2009/07/02/like-a-wool-sweater-scottish-sheep-shrink-as-temperatures-heat-up/">Soay sheep</A>. Scientists postulate that the relationship between a warmer climate and smaller animals may be true for the animal kingdom as a whole.</P></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2009/08/12/will-all-animals-shrink-under-a-warmer-climate/">Temperature has a clear impact on body size; it’s old news among scientists that birds closer to the equator <A href="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/tag/evolution/">evolved</A> to be smaller than their peers near the poles. </blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2009/08/12/will-all-animals-shrink-under-a-warmer-climate/">By examining the skins of more than 500 southeastern Australian songbirds that were collected between 1860 and 2001, the research team found that wing length–a good measure of body size–decreased by between 1.8 to 3.6 percent, depending on the species.<FONT color="#1c39bb"></FONT></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2009/08/12/will-all-animals-shrink-under-a-warmer-climate/">The scientists found no evidence that the decrease in size was due to nutritional changes among the birds.</blockquote></div><div style="margin: 0px 6px 6px 4px;"><table style="font-size: 11px;border-spacing: 0px;padding: 0px;" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tr><td style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;">&nbsp;</td><td align="right" style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;width:107px" width="107"><a href="http://clipmarks.com/share/AD286602-2274-449E-BE2F-EEB64F7B7FBE/blog/" title="blog or email this clip"><img src="http://content8.clipmarks.com/images/c2b-foot.png" border="0" alt="blog it" width="107" height="17" style="border-width:0px;padding:0px;margin:0px;" /></a></td></tr></table></div></div>

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