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Sean Faircloth:
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What's with the title of this piece?
"Once-Rare Butterfly Species Now Thrives, Thanks to Climate Change"
I rather think the title should have been taken from the later part of the article where the bigger picture is summed up as follows:
"Of course, this expansion in the north is counterbalanced by a loss of habitat further south, where conditions are rapidly becoming too hot for the butterfly. “The picture across its whole distributional range in Europe looks somewhat different,” notes ecologist Oliver Schweiger of the Heimholtz Centre for Environmental Research in Halle, Germany, who was not involved in the research. His modeling work suggests that, even assuming the butterfly can fly past any natural features that might otherwise restrict range expansion, “large range retractions in the South cannot be counterbalanced by the expansions in the North.” And even flying animals, like butterflies and birds, can’t seem to keep pace with the poleward march of temperature bands, according to Schweiger’s work".
So perhaps the headline should have been:
"Rare butterfly expands northward but loses even more ground in the South, Thanks to climate change."
Permalink Mon, 28 May 2012 07:34:07 UTC | #943916