Evolution Earth

Grasslands are one of the planet’s most important, yet most overlooked habitats. Follow scientists as they discover animal species with the power to transform and restore our grasslands, turning them into carbon sinks that could slow climate change.

After vets eradicated rinderpest, a disease which impacts both cattle and the wildebeest of the Serengeti. Wildebeest numbers grew and grew from 300,00 to over a million. At the time experts were worried they would overgraze destroying the ecosystem but instead the opposite happened, a key relationship was restored and the whole environment started to flourish.

Jonny Bearcub Stiffarm and others from the Assiniboine and Sioux Tribes on the Fort Peck Reservation come together to celebrate a momentous occasion. As all the way from Yellowstone National Park a new herd of Buffalo are returned  to their land.

Plant life on our planet is reacting to the changing climate. So scientists like Jane Zelikova are turning to the soil for an insight as to what is going on. Here in Kansas we see her and her research colleague Dr. Megan Machmuller digging down to take soil and root samples. She explains how grass systems play a vital role in carbon sequestration and the importance of necromass.

At the planet’s frozen extremes, shifts in animal movement and behavior reveal vital information about our future world. Examine polar bears in the Arctic, penguins in Antarctica and other animals surviving in icy worlds.

billy barr looks through the logs he's been keeping for almost 50 years. He explains how the glacier lilies emergence is becoming more and more out of sync with the broad-tailed hummingbirds arrival after their long migration up from Mexico. When billy started keeping his records in the 70s they arrived on the same day, today the lily is flowering three weeks before the hummingbird arrives.

As the climate warms, the boreal forest is advancing further north. With the tree line comes the red fox a competitor of the high Arctic specialist, the Arctic fox. The trees advances aren't just a problem for the Arctic foxes but for the planet as a whole, the darker tree cover absorbs more heat and decrease the albedo effect which further warms the planet, causing the cycle to start again.

Reindeer are playing a crucial role in preserving the tundra. As the Sápmi winters are getting warmer and wetter, the lichen and grass reindeer rely on are frozen over. Sámi reindeer herders like Nils are guiding these animals to forests to eat shrubs and branches.

In Senegal a troop of critically endangered West African chimpanzees seek shade in a cave to avoid the savanna temperatures which at the peak of the dry season push the chimps to their limits. This is a behavior never recorded before, and as with many precious resources, when the whole troop arrives, tempers can flare. As the climate continues to warm their limits will be pushed even further.

Travel to the hottest and driest extremes to see animals go to extraordinary lengths to survive. From the Sahara Desert to Australia, animals provide new clues about our changing planet and what it will mean for the future of our heating world.

In the Australian Outback, we follow Mylene Mariette as she sets up an unusual experiment that reveals something extraordinary about the zebra finches battle to survive. When it gets really hot out here, these small birds can sing to their unhatched eggs, alerting them to the baking conditions. This in turn causes the new born chick to be smaller, increasing their chance for survival.

In the Negev Desert of Israel, rising temperatures mean longer droughts, more intense heat waves, water sources drying out, and valleys turning to dust. With a loss of vegetation and water, the Nubian Ibex are migrating their country lifestyles to the big city. The ibex are boldly taking over the city to adapt to their needs.