Three decades of data on animal migration and movements in the Arctic, tracked through a massive database developed by environmental engineers, shows that animals in one of Earth's coldest regions are shifting their behaviors because of climate change.
The database, described in an article published today in the journal Science, includes records from ecologists around the world. It includes more than 200 research projects tracking the movements of more than 8,000 marine and land animals from 1991 to today.
"What we ended up with is this massive dataset that can tell us how the behavior of animals is evolving in the face of climate change," said Gil Bohrer, a professor of civil, environmental and geodetic engineering at The Ohio State University, who developed the database and is one of the lead authors of the paper. Bohrer also is an affiliated faculty member of the university's Sustainability Institute.
Scientists know the Arctic is warming. Average temperatures have increased about 2.3 degrees Celsius since the 1970s, research shows.
Earlier springs, warmer winters, shrinking ice and increased human development are affecting how native animals behave, researchers have found. Along with the details of the database, the paper published in Science includes the results from three studies based on the data, showing long-term and large-scale behavioral changes in the behaviors of golden eagles, bears, caribou, moose and wolves.
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