Climate change can affect the phenology, population dynamics and morphology of species, but it is difficult to study all these factors and their interactions at once. Using long-term data for individual yellow-bellied marmots, these authors show that climate change has increased the length of the marmot growing season, leading to a gradual increase in individual size. It has simultaneously increased the fitness of large individuals, leading to a rapid increase in population size.

Demonstrations of coupled phenotypic and demographic responses to climate change are rare. But they are much needed in formulating predictions of the effects of climate change on natural populations.

In the past century, two major outbreaks of disease led to the discovery of hantaviruses in the Old and New Worlds.

Rodent losses are a perennial problem worldwide. In Asia, for instance, rodents devour an estimated 6% of the annual rice harvest

Flowering of bamboo is a botanical enigma. The factors responsible for this are still not clearly established. Bamboos flower only once and die after flowering to regenerate from seeds1. The strange phenomenon of simultaneous flowering in bamboo clumps in vast areas is called gregarious flowering and causes ecological havoc. (Correspondence)