© Steve Bower | shutterstockIn Alaska, changes in moose migrations no longer line up with the hunting season, creating problems for native tribes who depend on the meat.
But increasing research is showing some of these relationships are falling out of sync as climate change alters important cues, such as the arrival of spring warmth.
"There are going to be winners and losers," said David Inouye, a biology professor at the University of Maryland, who has followed seasonal events at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory in Colorado since 1973. "The ultimate outcome will be that some species go extinct and some manage to adapt."
This isn't just a problem for the natural world. Shifts in seasonal events can have direct implications for humans, "because we, as human societies, are adapted to certain seasonal conditions," said Shannon McNeeley, a postdoctoral researcher at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) who has studied how a mismatch is playing out in Alaska. There, changes in the moose migrations have made it difficult for native people to obtain the meat they need during the legal hunting season.
"This more subtle seasonal change has not been a main focus of climate research," McNeeley said. "I think it is going to be one that emerges more and more as we see these changes happening, and we start to have more conflicts around this."
