Can Polar Bears Survive Rapid Change in Climate Again?
04.03.2010 - Ice & Snow, Flora & Fauna, Arctic
A team of scientists was able to determine that the polar bear is a relatively new species that rapidly adapted at a time when the Earth was beginning to warm at the end of an ice age, according to a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. However scientists say the species might not be able to repeat the feat in the face of rapid temperature rises.
Polar bear fossils are rare since their remains are usually scavenged by other animals or sink to the bottom of the ocean. The specimen tested was found in Norway's remote Svalbard archipelago in 2004 by an Icelandic geologist.
The research team conducted DNA analysis on the fossil, which was estimated at 110,000-to-130,000 years old, and compared it to DNA from modern polar bears and brown bears. Their findings confirm that the polar bear is an evolutionarily young species, which split off from brown bears some 150,000 years ago before evolving extremely rapidly.
However given that it lives in a very specialized region and adheres to a limited diet of seals, might now be what put it to danger as climate change continues to diminish their natural habitat of Arctic sea ice.
