News Life

Climate changes, and there goes the neighborhood

Ranges of rattlers and voles likely to shift drastically with warming

By Susan Milius

- More than 2 years ago

PITTSBURGH ― Rattlesnakes and voles could be facing real estate meltdowns of their own, as climate change forecloses habitats or shifts livable conditions into new regions at speeds as much as a thousand times faster than prehistoric averages.

PAST IS PROLOGUE Shifts in vole species in California and Oregon have inspired researchers to reconstruct where voles lived during past climate variations to get an idea of how animals might cope, or not, with predicted warming.