The climate crisis may lead the human race to shrink in size, as mammals with smaller frames appear better able to deal with
rising global temperatures, a leading fossil expert has said.
Prof Steve Brusatte, a palaeontologist at the University of Edinburgh, suggested that the way in which other mammals have
previously responded to periods of climate change could offer an insight into humans’ future.
He likened the potential plight of people as similar to that of early horses, which became smaller in body size as temperatures rose
around 55m years ago, a period called the Paleocene Eocene Thermal Maximum.
Writing in The Rise and Reign of the Mammals, Brusatte notes that animals in warmer parts of the world today are often smaller 
than those in colder areas, an ecological principle known as Bergmann’s rule. “The reasons are not entirely understood, but it is 
probably, in part, because smaller animals have a higher surface area relative to their volume than plumper animals and can thus
better shed excess heat,” he writes.
Brusatte said that becoming smaller was “a common way that mammals deal with climate change”. He added: “That’s not to say
every species of mammal would get smaller, but it seems to be a common survival trick of mammals when temperatures spike
pretty quickly. Which does raise the question: if temperatures do spike really quickly might humans dwarf, might humans get 
smaller? And I think that’s certainly plausible.”
In a recent study, researchers studying human remains over the past million years have also suggested that temperature is a
 major predictor of body size variation, while scientists studying red deer have said that warmer winters in northern Europe and 
Scandinavia may lead to the body size of these animals becoming smaller.
However, not all experts agree that rising temperature causes mammals to shrink. Prof Adrian Lister, of the Natural History
 Museum in London, said the relationship shown by the recent human remains study is weak, while the strong correlations 
between temperature and mammal body size may often be down to the availability of food and resources.
Lister is also sceptical that humans will shrink as the climate heats. “We are not really controlled by natural selection,” he said. 
“If that was going to happen, you’d need to find large people dying before they could reproduce because of climate warming. 
That is not happening in today’s world. We wear clothes, we have got heating, we have got air conditioning if it is too hot.”

来源：卫报