The American pika could survive climate change by eating its own feces

By Todd Woody @greenwombat December 21, 2013

One of the most contentious climate change debates is whether wildlife will adapt or die when threatened by global warming, and what humans should do to save them. Now a new study suggests that one of the critters most at risk from climate change could indeed survive by adapting a rather unappetizing diet.

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An impossibly cute member of the rabbit family, the furry pika lives on rocky slopes of the mountains of the North American west. It survives frigid winters by maintaining a high body temperature. But since it cannot control its internal thermometer, the pika is extremely vulnerable to rising temperatures as climate change accelerates. In the summer, the pika can die if its body temperature increases by as little as 3 degrees Celsius (5.4 degrees F).

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As some populations have disappeared from lower elevations and others have migrated toward mountain tops, environmentalists have fought (so far unsuccessfully) to have the pika listed by US state and federal governments as endangered. That in turn could obligate governments to stop carbon-spewing industrial development harmful to the pika.

http://qz.com/160506/the-american-pika-could-survive-climate-change-by-eating-its-own-feces/

and another article

What an adorable fur ball can teach us about climate change

Evolving eating habits of the pika reveal we must find a way to adapt in the face of inevitable near-term warming

MICHAEL TODD, PACIFIC STANDARD

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Normally, a pika would forage around and collect a pile of vegetation to dine on during the winter when provender grows scarce. These haypiles can hold as much as 60 pounds in the Rockies, although the low-elevation Oregon pikas only store about 10 pounds for their milder winter. But by eating moss, which grows in the shadier part of the heaps of rock where the pikas live, the animals don’t have to head out into predator-filled open land and can stay in the shade. The latter matters a lot, because pikas are basically fur-covered six-inch balls optimized to be as warm as possible at all times. Two hours at 78 degrees, the researchers note, is all it takes to do in a pika—which suggests they might literally be killing themselves in the summer at those higher elevations as they struggle to gather those 60 pounds of supplies.

Something else to know—using moss as a wall covering is cool. Literally. These lowland rockpiles with 40 to 80 percent moss covering are up to 27 degrees Fahrenheit less than mossy surroundings or prime pika habitat higher up. “Taken together,” Varner and Dearing write, “these results suggest that CRG pika populations may actually be better protected from heat stress caused by climate change than their counterparts living in the high mountains, who are obligated to construct substantial haypiles during the warmest parts of the summer.” (The researchers don’t claim that what’s true for these Mt. Hood-area pikas is automatically true for pikas everywhere.)

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http://www.salon.com/2013/12/20/how_climate_change_is_driving_evolution_partner/