HIGH-FIBER SALAD BAR MAY HELP LAGOMORPHS SURVIVE CLIMATE
CHANGE
In some mountain ranges, Earth’s warming climate is driving
rabbit relatives known as pikas to higher elevations or wiping them out. But
University of Utah biologists discovered that roly-poly pikas living in
rockslides near sea level in Oregon can survive hot weather by eating more moss
than any other mammal.
“Our work shows pikas can eat unusual foods like moss to
persist in strange environments,” says biology professor Denise Dearing, senior
author of the new study, published online today in the February 2014 issue of
Journal of Mammalogy. “It suggests that they may be more resistant to climate
change than we thought.”