Carbon Dioxide and Earth's Future Pursuing the ... - Magazooms

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In another intriguing research finding, Gonzalez-Megias et al. (2008) investigated species
turnover in 51 butterfly assemblages in Britain by examining regional extinction and
colonization events that occurred between the two periods 1976-1982 and 1995-2002, over
which time interval the world’s climate alarmists claim the planet experienced a warming they
contend was unprecedented over the past millennium or more. And in doing so, the five
researchers found that regional colonizations exceeded extinctions, as “over twice as many
sites gained species as lost species,” such that “the average species richness of communities
has increased.” And they too found that species abundances following colonization likewise
increased, due to “climate-related increases in the *land’s+ carrying capacity.”
In comparing their results with those of a broader range of animal studies, Gonzalez-Megias et
al. found that “analyses of distribution changes for a wide range of other groups of animals in
Britain suggest that southern representatives of most taxa are moving northwards at a rate
similar to -- and in some cases faster than -- butterflies (Hickling et al., 2006),” and they report
that “as with butterflies, most of these taxonomic groups have fewer northern than southern
representatives, so climate-driven colonisations are likely to exceed extinctions.” Hence, they
suggested that “most of these taxa will also be experiencing slight community-level increases in
species richness.”
One additional means by which butterflies can cope with high temperatures is through the
production of heat-shock proteins (HSPs). According to Karl et al. (2008), HSPs “are thought to
play an important ecological and evolutionary role in thermal adaptation,” where “the
upregulation of stress-inducible HSPs may help organisms to cope with stress thus enhancing
survival (Sorensen et al., 2003; Dahlhoff, 2004; Dahlhoff and Rank, 2007).”
Working with Lycaena tityrus, a widespread temperate-zone butterfly that ranges from western
Europe to central Asia, Karl et al. tested this hypothesis by comparing expression patterns of
stress-inducible HSPs across replicated populations originating from different altitudes, as well
as across different ambient temperatures. Their observations revealed a significant interaction
between altitude and rearing temperature that indicated that "low-altitude animals showed a
strongly increased HSP70 expression at the higher compared with at the lower rearing
temperature,” which is exactly where one would expect to see such a response in light of its
obvious utility.
In discussing their findings, Karl et al. said their observation that “HSP70 expression increased
substantially at the higher rearing temperature in low-altitude butterflies ... might represent an
adaptation to occasionally occurring heat spells,” which further suggests that this response
should serve these organisms well in the days and years to come, especially if the dramatic
warming and increase in heat spells predicted by the world’s climate alarmists ever come to
pass, which still further suggests (in light of the similar findings of others) that more of earth’s
life forms than many have assumed might be genetically equipped to likewise cope with the
future thermal dangers envisioned by those enamored with the climate modeling enterprise
and its imagined ramifications.
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