Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Article Assignment #1

Climate Change to Disrupt Arctic Diversity - Steve Casimiro

Rating: ***

This article is not a good read unless you're expecting the title to be deceiving. The content of the article doesn't have any "diversity" of animals in it, just one, the arctic fox.

The article tells us about the arctic fox, an animal that colonized Iceland 200-500 years ago during the Little Ice. The 10,000 arctic foxes living today are at no risk of dying off and becoming extinct, but they won't be able to travel hundreds of miles across ice bridges to the arctic, since the bridges are melting from climate change. There were foxes that migrated to Iceland in the 9th century and then were trapped there for hundreds of years until the 16th century. The arctic foxes now have new genetic signatures from breeding with other which they are calling "diverse".

I didn't enjoy reading this article because I thought I would be reading an article about diverse groups of animals leaving the arctic. The article talks only about one animal, the arctic fox which is good if you want to learn about the arctic fox in the arctic, but if that's the case the title should not say "diversity" since it doesn't talk about various animals, just one. I am impressed with the amount of information on arctic foxes in the arctic and I did learn some interesting things about the genetic signatures and travels of the arctic foxes which is why I gave it three stars instead of two stars or one star.

I would not recommend this article to anyone unless they are wanting to learn about the arctic fox.

Casimiro, Steve. "Climate Change to Disrupt Arctic Diversity." Adventure Journal Outdoor Sports Travel Gear Camping Cycling Skiing Surfing Hiking. www.adventure-journal.com. Web. 3 Oct. 2012. <http://www.adventure-journal.com/2012/09/climate-change-to-disrupt-arctic-diversity/>.

No comments:

Post a Comment