HTTP:: Soil Creatures Got Smaller 55 Million Years Ago
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A new scientific study has determined that soil-dwelling creatures that inhabited the world some 55 million years ago evolved to be a lot smaller than they had been before, largely due to the increased global temperatures during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM). This is among the first studies to investigate such a correlation, and experts say that the influence the environment had on the soil dwellers goes way beyond estimates. The creatures responded to heat by decreasing their body sizes by about 50 percent, within a very short time frame, the US National Science Foundation (NSF) reports. “The discovery that up to 50 percent of the body size reduction during the PETM was not just restricted to mammals, but also affected soil-dwelling organisms, has broad implications that may be very significant to understanding modern climate change and its impending effect on life,†NSF Division of Earth Sciences Program Director H. Richard Lane explains. The DES was th!
e main funder for the new investigation, which was conducted by University of Kansas geologist Stephen Hasiotis, Kansas Geological Survey scientist Jon Smith, and University of Colorado expert Mary Kraus. The research, which is detailed in the October 5 advanced online issue of the respected journal Proceedings of the Nationa...
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http://news.softpedia.com/news/Soil-Creatures-Got-Smaller-55-Million-Years-Ago-123562.shtml
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