Climate change and the mystery of the shrinking sheep

How milder winters are causing Scotland's Soay sheep to decrease in size<em> - News Release</em>

Imperial College London news release

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1900 hours British Summer Time
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Thursday 2 July 2009

Milder winters are causing Scotland's wild breed of Soay sheep to get smaller, despite the evolutionary benefits of possessing a large body, according to new research due to be published in this week's Science Express (2 July).

The new study provides evidence for climate change as the cause of the mysterious decrease in the size of wild sheep on the Scottish island of Hirta, first reported by scientists in 2007. The researchers believe that, due to climate change, survival conditions on Hirta are becoming less challenging, which means slower-growing, smaller sheep are more likely to survive the winters than they once were. This, together with newly-discovered so-called 'young mum effect' whereby young ewes produce smaller offspring, explains why the average size of sheep on the island is decreasing.

Classical evolutionary theory suggests that over time the average size of wild sheep increases, because larger animals tend to be more likely to survive and reproduce than smaller ones, and offspring tend to resemble their parents. However, among the Soay sheep of Hirta, a remote Scottish island in the St Kilda archipelago, average body size has decreased by approximately 5 per cent over the last 24 years.

Researchers analysed body size data for Soay sheep over a 24 year period

The research team analysed body size and life history data, which records the timing of key milestones throughout an individual sheep's life, for Soays on Hirta over this 24 year period. They found that sheep on the island are not growing as quickly as they once did, and that smaller sheep are more likely to survive into adulthood. This is bringing down the average size of sheep in the population over all.

Lead author Professor Tim Coulson from Imperial's Department of Life Sciences, suggests that this is because shorter, milder winters, caused by global climate change, mean that lambs do not need to put on as much as weight in the first months of life to survive to their first birthday as they did when winters were colder.

He explains: "In the past, only the big, healthy sheep and large lambs that had piled on weight in their first summer could survive the harsh winters on Hirta. But now, due to climate change, grass for food is available for more months of the year, and survival conditions are not so challenging – even the slower growing sheep have a chance of making it, and this means smaller individuals are becoming increasingly prevalent in the population."

In the past, the harsh Hirta island winters meant only the biggest, strongest Soays survived

Their results suggest that the decrease in average body size seen in Hirta's sheep is primarily an ecological response to environmental changes over the last 25 years; evolutionary change has contributed relatively little.

In addition, the research team also discovered that the age at which a female sheep gives birth affects the size of her offspring. They realised that young Soay ewes are physically unable to produce offspring that are as big as they themselves were at birth. This 'young-mum' effect had not been incorporated into previous analyses of natural selection, which explains in part why the sheep of Hirta are defying biologists' expectations.

"The young mum effect explains why Soay sheep have not been getting bigger, as we expected them to," concludes Professor Coulson, "But it is not enough to explain why they're shrinking. We believe that this is down to climate change. These two factors are combining to override what we would expect through natural selection."

The research was carried out in collaboration with scientists from the Universities of Leeds, Cambridge, Edinburgh and Stanford. It was funded in the UK by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC).

-Ends-

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Danielle Reeves, Imperial College London press office
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Notes to Editors:

1. 'The Dynamics of Phenotypic Change and the Shrinking Sheep of St. Kilda', Science Express, Thursday 2 July, 2009.

Arpat Ozgul (1), Shripad Tuljapurkar (2), Tim G. Benton (3), Josephine M. Pemberton (4), Tim H. Clutton-Brock (5) and Tim Coulson (1).

(1) Department of Life Sciences, Imperial College London, Silwood Park, Ascot, Berkshire, SL5 7PY, UK.
(2) Department of Biology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305-5020, USA.
(3) School of Biology, University of Leeds, Leeds, LS2 9JT, UK.
(4) Institute for Evolutionary Biology, University of Edinburgh, Kings Buildings, West Mains Road, Edinburgh, EH9 3JT, UK.
(5) Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge, CB2 3EJ, UK.

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