ScienceDaily: An ornithologist who studies the physiological changes that birds undergo to migrate has found that the capacity of a bird's gut to change with environmental conditions is a primary limiting factor in their ability to adapt to the rapidly changing climate. And he believes that most other animals are also limited in a similar way.
Scott McWilliams, URI professor of natural resources science, says that spare capacity -- the extent to which animals can modify their physiology to deal with ecological...