In boreal forests, many hares adopt white winter coats before the snow arrives. In a snowless landscape, these white hares lack camouflage against predators. However, their early moult from brown into white fur can increase their survival and offers an advantage as the snow season becomes progressively shorter with climate change.
Throughout the year, we wear different clothing to protect ourselves from the cold or heat and for aesthetic reasons depending on the occasion. Likewise, many animals change the colour, thickness and structure of their fur and feathers in tune with the seasons.
Snowshoe hare (Lepus americanus) in a snowy (Kluane Lake/Yukon, Canada) and snowless habitat (Seely Lake/Montana, USA). This mammal moults its coat as colder temperatures, shorter days, and snowfall arrive. In the genetic populations of the temperate forests of the Rocky Mountains and the boreal forests spanning the North American continent, hares that moult from brown to white are abundant (20). However, in coastal areas, and in the third genetic population in the North Pacific, snowfall is brief and less intense, resulting in fewer white individuals. This is due to hybridisation with the black-tailed jackrabbit (Lepus californicus) over 3,000 years ago (17). The hare’s coat has an outer layer, where the longer fur gives each individual its colour, and an inner layer of short fur (19). In winter, the outer layer becomes thicker and denser, while the inner layer maintains a consistent thickness but increases in density. By biomass, the snowshoe hare is the primary herbivore in the North American boreal forest and distinguishes the trophic relationships between continents (21). In Europe, much of the boreal understory remains under snow, providing food for rodents with four-year abundance cycles controlled by small generalist predators (mustelids). In North America, the boreal understory grows above the snow and provides food for hares. In this region, snowshoe hare populations follow 10-year abundance cycles regulated by specialist predators (those that feed almost exclusively on hares), primarily the Canada lynx (Lynx canadensis) (6). Photos courtesy of Alice Kenney and Charles Krebs (Yukon) [see their ecological monitoring program here] and Marketa Zimova (Montana).
However, as the climate changes, springs arrive earlier, winters are delayed, and the frequency and intensity of precipitation have become highly variable. All of this makes it harder for species to adjust their wardrobe to temperature changes (1).
In this context, body colour is a critical factor for birds and mammals that undergo an annual moult (2). In 21 species from the cold latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere, some individuals are brown in summer, but turn white in winter, while others remain brown year round (3). This phenomenon includes weasels, rodents, ptarmigans, foxes, rabbits and hares.
Of all Australia’s wildlife, one stands out as having an identity crisis: the dingo. But our recent article in the journal Zootaxa argues that dingoes should be regarded as a bona fidespecies on multiple fronts.
This isn’t just an issue of semantics. How someone refers to dingoes may reflect their values and interests, as much as the science.
How scientists refer to dingoes in print reflects their background and place of employment, and the Western Australian government recently made a controversial attempt to classify the dingo as “non-native fauna”.
Over many years, dingoes have been called many scientific names: Canis lupus dingo (a subspecies of the wolf), Canis familiaris (a domestic dog), and Canis dingo (its own species within the genus Canis). But these names have been applied inconsistently in both academic literature and government policy.
This inconsistency partially reflects the global arguments regarding the naming of canids. For those who adhere to the traditional “biological” species concept (in which a “species” is a group of organisms that can interbreed), one might consider the dingo (and all other canids that can interbreed, like wolves, coyotes, and black-backed jackals) to be part of a single, highly variable and widely distributed species.
Members of the Canis genus: wolf (Canis lupus), coyote (Canis latrans), Ethiopian wolf (Canis simensis), black-backed jackal (Canis mesomelas), dingo (Canis dingo), and a representative of the domestic dog (Canis familiaris).
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Procreating with a relative is taboo in most human societies for many reasons, but they all stem from avoiding one thing in particular — inbreeding increases the risk of genetic disorders that can seriously compromise a child’s health, life prospects, and survival. While we all inherit potentially harmful mutations from our parents, the effects of…
(reproduced from 
ConservationBytes.com 