Climate change and birds
Significant work has gone into analyzing the effects of climate change on birds.
Climate change mitigation options can also have varying impacts on birds. However, even the environmental impact of wind power is estimated to be much less threatening to birds than the continuing effects of climate change.[12]
Causes
Effects
Physical changes
Climate change has already altered the appearance of some birds by facilitating changes to their
A study in Chicago showed that the length of birds' lower leg bones (an indicator of body sizes) shortened by an average of 2.4% and their wings lengthened by 1.3%. In the central Amazon area, birds have decreased in mass (an indicator of size) by up to 2% per decade, and increased in wing length by up to 1% per decade, with links to temperature and precipitation shifts. These morphological trends may demonstrate an example of evolutionary change following Bergmann's rule.[16][17][18][19] Across Eurasia, snowfinches became both smaller and darker over the past 100 years.[20]
Rising temperatures due to global warming have also been shown to decrease the size of many migratory birds.[21] In a first study to identify a direct link between cognition and phenotypic responses to climate change, researchers show that size reduction is much more pronounced in smaller-brained birds compared to bigger-brained species.[21] Reduction in body size is a general response to warming temperatures since birds with smaller bodies can dissipate heat easier, helping to cope with the heat-caused stress. Reduced body and brain sizes also lead to reduced cognitive and competitive ability, making the smaller-species birds easier targets for predators.[21] In another study where researchers compared the brain sizes of 1,176 bird species, they found that species that spend more resources on their young have larger brains as adults.[22] Bird species that feed their offspring after hatching have extended durations during which their young can develop their brain, producing more intelligent and larger-brained offspring. Changing environments due to climate change might impact the ability of birds to obtain enough food to sustain their own brains and provide for their young, resulting in reduced brain sizes. Larger-brained and more intelligent birds, such as the New Caledonian crow, may therefore be able to better cope with the challenges posed by climate change.[22]
Phenology
For many species, climate change already results in
In response, changes in bird phenology have been observed over the past 50 years, such as the lengthening of spring migrations. Different species can have different triggers for migration, and so the changes in migration patterns can also differ, but for many, there is a correlation between temperatures and otherwise unexplained variations in migration timing over the short term. In general, the earliest individuals are migrating earlier and the latest migrating at a similar time or later than before.[7][28] Wood warblers in North America provide a notable example, as an analysis of 60 years of data shows that every additional of early spring temperatures appears to bring their migrations 0.65 days closer.[8] There has been some scientific debate as to whether such shifts represent an evolutionary adaptive change, or phenotypic plasticity. In other words, just because many individuals in a species have altered their phenology, it does not mean that the change will necessarily help those individuals obtain greater reproductive success and perpetuate the change in behaviour in the next generation, since individual phenotypic changes may be mistimed. This is especially important with climate change, as its variable rate makes it harder to adjust the timing correctly, and it's possible for individuals across multiple generations to respond to such environmental cues in the same manner, but without an ultimate reproductive benefit.[29] Some species which have increased their egg laying dates and advanced spring migration timelines have shown more positive population trends, like some passerines breeding in Great Britain, but this only provides indirect evidence.[9] To date, Common terns are one of a few species where the pressure to migrate earlier (forwards shift of 9.3 days over 27 years) was confirmed to have a heritable component to it.[30]
Extreme disturbance events
Besides an ongoing increase in temperature and shifts in precipitation patterns, climate change also increases the frequency of
Climate change is known to increase the risk and the severity of
Range
Climate change can make nesting conditions intolerable for various bird species. For instance,
Besides rising temperatures, climate change can also impact birds' ranges through changes in
Human actions often interact with the effects of climate change. For example, in
Extinction
In 2012, it was estimated that on average, every degree of warming results in between 100 and 500 land bird extinctions. For a warming of 3.5 °C (6.3 °F) by 2100, the same research estimated between 600 and 900 land bird extinctions, with 89% occurring in the tropical environments.
A 2023 paper concluded that under the high-warming SSP5–8.5 scenario, 51.79% of birds would lose at least some habitat by 2100 as the conditions become more arid, but only 5.25% would lose over half of their habitat due to an increase in dryness alone, while 1.29% could be expected to lose their entire habitat. These figures go down to 38.65%, 2.02% and 0.95% under the "intermediate" SSP2-4.5 scenario and to 22.83%, 0.70% and 0.49% under the high-mitigation SSP1-2.6.[57]
In 2015, it was projected that native forest birds in Hawaii would be threatened with extinction due to the spread of avian malaria under the high-warming RCP8.5 scenario or a similar scenario from earlier modelling, but would persist under the "intermediate" RCP4.5.[58] For the 604 bird species in mainland North America, 2020 research concluded that under 1.5 °C (2.7 °F) warming, 207 would be moderately vulnerable to extinction and 47 would be highly vulnerable. At 2 °C (3.6 °F), this changes to 198 moderately vulnerable and 91 highly vulnerable. At 3 °C (5.4 °F), there are more highly vulnerable species (205) than moderately vulnerable species (140). Relative to 3 °C (5.4 °F), stabilizing the warming at 1.5 °C (2.7 °F) represents a reduction in extinction risk for 76% of those species, and 38% stop being vulnerable.[59][60][61]
The
Effects of climate change mitigation activities
Climate change mitigation benefits most bird species in the long run by limiting harmful effects of climate change. However, mitigation strategies may have more complex unintended outcomes. Some provide co-benefits as forest management to thin forest fire fuels may increase bird habitat. Certain cropping strategies for renewable biomass may also increase overall species richness compared to traditional agricultural practices.[7] On the other hand, tidal power systems may affect wader birds,[7] but there's little research due to the limited uptake of this form of renewable energy.
Wind farms are known for being dangerous to birds, and have been found to harm species such as white-tailed eagles and whooper swans. This may be a problem of visual acuity, as most birds have a poor frontal vision. Wind turbine collisions could potentially be reduced if towers were made more conspicuous to birds, or placed in better locations.[7]
In the United States, it has been estimated that between 140,000 and 500,000 birds die every year from collisions with wind turbines, which could increase to 1.4 million if the wind power capacity were increased six-fold. On average, collisions are the least frequent in the Great Plains region, where about 2.92 birds collide with a turbine every year, are higher in the West and East of the country (4.72 and 6.86 birds per turbine annually) and are the highest in California where 7.85 birds collide with each turbine every year. [74]
In general, older wind farms tended to consider birds less in their placement, and this led to greater mortality rates than for wind farms installed after the development of improved guidelines.
See also
- Assisted migration
- Effects of climate change on biomes
- Bird migration perils
- Bird fallout
- Bird conservation
- Season creep
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