Word: adaptive
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Canada geese shouldn't be present in such numbers - and they nearly weren't. Thanks to overhunting and habitat loss, their numbers were dangerously low by the 1950s. But better environmental laws helped reverse the decline, and the geese learned to adapt to and eventually thrive in man-made environments. Ponds in public parks, people to feed them, nicely mowed yards and golf courses - Canada geese found a home in America's expanding suburbs, even in such hot spots as Arizona, Florida and South Carolina...
...Science paper explores a fascinating topic: how species will adjust to a warmer world. The environment has always driven natural selection - successful species adapt to their surroundings, or they die - and while the environment has also always changed, never has it done so as quickly as it does today, thanks to the billions of tons of CO2 we're shoveling into the atmosphere. (Watch TIME's video "How to Shear a Sheep...
...Soay sheep show, animals can respond to climate change, but not in the ways we're accustomed to. "They can do so in two ways," says Coulson. "They can do so through the evolutionary process, which is a little slower, but they can also adapt by changing their growth rate in response to their environment." Scientists like Coulson can then separate the effects of evolution from the effects of the environment...
That doesn't mean that animals will adapt and thrive in a warmer world. Far from it - by some estimates, rapid climate change could drive as many as one-third of the species on the planet out of existence by mid-century. Though warmer winters in blustery Scotland might sound nice - especially if you're a sheep on the small side - the changes due to global warming are likely to be far from positive in most parts of the world. Evolution will help species adapt, but there's a term for what happens when the pace of evolution...
...take his time with a scene, going a little faster or a little slower, and a conductor can change night after night. There are liberties with tempo. But there's a rigidity to film that makes it like a dictatorship. You have to work, and find a way to adapt, under that restriction...