Arctic Animals Forced To Eat Their Own As Food Sources Destroyed By Humans And Climate Change

Climate change has led to an increase in the temperature of the Arctic and with it comes some drastic change in morbid behaviors.

According to some researchers at Alaska, female wolf spiders are forced to eat their own kind in order to survive.

What they found out is that wolf spiders feed on juvenile ones, thus decreasing their own population in some areas.

The warming of the habitats has caused wolf spiders to get larger in size and produce more offsprings, which puts pressure on the limited resources in the area.

This drastic change in behavior was noticed by Washington University researchers working at two Alaska-based sites.

According to the first author of this study Amanda Koltz, while eating their own is far from being the best dietary for wolf spiders, researchers’ data suggest they seem to commit cannibalism more often when there are a large number of other spiders in the same area. So this trend might reflect the fierce competition for food among the wolf spiders.

The warming world seems to have the most visible effect on animals regulating their body temperature. Some previous research has shown that wolf spiders living in the Arctic have grown larger in size as a result of climate change.

Apart from a bigger body, female spiders also give birth to more offsprings when the temperature is hotter. However, scientists are not so sure if this will result in a larger population of wold spiders in the wild.

Koltz warned while the study was conducted in the Arctic, its result can be relevant elsewhere.

Wolf spiders are not the only victims of climate change and have to turn to cannibalism to survive. Some previous research shows that polar bears are resorting to eating their young. As their habitat shrinks when the Earth gets warmer, polar bears are targeting each other, mostly with males attacking females and their cubs.

While the bears are no strangers to cannibalism, it was not until recently that this behavior is observed more often. Polar bears' usual diet is seals but since the ice is melting fast as a result of climate change, their food source and their common way of hunting take a big hit.

>>> Habitat Destroyed By Climate Change, Polar Bears Forced To Eat Their Cubs