The Climate Question
The Climate Question
Can animals evolve to deal with climate change?
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September 19, 2022
27 minutes
Available for over a year
As climate change brings rising temperatures and shifting patterns of rainfall, animals are adapting to keep pace. Bird’s bodies are growing smaller, their wingspan longer, lizards are growing larger thumb pads to help them grip more tightly in hurricane strength winds, beak size is changing.
We visit the Galapagos, where evolution was first discovered by Charles Darwin, to investigate the many ways the behaviour and physiology of animals are changing to survive the impact of climate change. But can they do it quickly enough?
First broadcast – 14 March 2022
Presenters Jordan Dunbar and Kate Lamble are joined by:
Kiyoko Gotanda, Assistant Professor at Brock University
Ramiro Tomala, Expedition leader, Metropolitan Touring in the Galapagos
Thor Hanson, conservationist and author of Hurricane Lizards and Plastic Squid
Anne Charmantier, Director of Research at Centre d’Ecologie Fonctionnelle et Evolutive (CEFE), Montpellier
With thanks to research carried out by Colin Donihue of Institute at Brown for Environment and Society.
Producer: Dearbhail Starr
Reporter: Mark Stratton
Series Producer: Alex Lewis
Editor: Nicola Addyman
Production Coordinators: Sophie Hill and Siobhan Reed
Sound Engineer: Tom Brignell