Dear Editor,
Please consider our manuscript entitled “Fifty years of data show that climate affects overall skull size, and the extent of seasonal reversible skull change in the common shrew” for publication in your journal.
In today’s changing world we are all becoming aware of the severe impact climate change has and will continue to have on biodiversity. However, we lack studies that cover large enough time periods to really address this question. Here we present an analysis of a dataset that, we think, is unique for two main reasons: a) it adresses a 52-year time range, including the onset of climate change and b) the animal model is a species that is likely very sensitive to global warming as it has a predominantly Northern distribution. In addition, our model, the common shrew has an extremely high metabolism and does not hibernate, making winter a sensitive season for them. As an adaptation to this, the shrews shrink in winter and regrow in spring. Only a collection such as the one from the Mammal Research Institute in Poland that we used, which contains animals collected year-round, allows to address climate change related questions in this species.
Body size (as measured by the skull) is a well-established measure in this species and it shows patterns opposite to what you would expect with larger within-species body sizes towards the South. We present a thorough analysis incorporating a large number of environmental variables showing that this species is indeed affected by climate change and, along with the many other species in the genus Sorex , will likely continue to do so.
We thus believe that this paper does not only document the effect of climate change in a particularly extensive dataset, but also sends an urgent message and will be widely received by a broad audience.
Yours faithfully,
Jan R.E. Taylor and co-authors