Climate change threatens many animals -- but with any luck, some will handle weather shifts with as much aplomb as Parus major, a colorful songbird also known as the great tit.
In a study published today in Science, ornithologists from the University of Oxford tracked the egg-laying times of great tits in Wytham, England. Since the mid-1970s, temperatures in Wytham have risen steadily, hastening the start of spring by two weeks. The birds have followed suit, timing their breeding to coincide with earlier hatches of their favorite food source, a species of moth caterpillar.
The birds' adaptation appears to be based in what's known as phenotypic plasticity -- the ability of a creature to respond to changes in its environment -- rather than natural selection favoring birds with earlier breeding times.
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