How life adapted to the cold Irish winters

AT the end of the last Ice Age, animals and plants crept northwards to colonise the messy moraines left behind when the ice melted.

They got to the part of Europe that would become Ireland when it broke off from the continent and they were faced with a problem — the winter.

It wasn’t just that it was still cold. It was also that they were now so far north the winter days were extremely short. But evolution works because of the adaptability of life forms, and strategies were invented to solve the problem. The trees, particularly deciduous, developed a type of hibernation. The average tree has the same amount of biomass below ground as above. The living part of the tree retreated into its root system, where, insulated by the soil, it was dormant until the weather warmed up, the days lengthened and photosynthesis became worthwhile.