Iceland today
200-500 years ago a "little" ice age had occurred which created a bridge of sea ice that connected Iceland with other artic regions, such as Greenland and Russia. This allowed the spreading and increase of the artic fox population. In recent years with rising temperatures, researchers fear that without the sea ice the artic fox population in Iceland will become separated and isolated from the other artic regions. This isolation could cause the foxes in Iceland to differentiate from those in other regions over years of evolution. Scientists at Durham University, UK, found that this has happened before by analyzing DNA from 9th century fossil remains of ancient artic foxes with those of the foxes today.
