Climate Change Induced Evolution

Climate change has been a major cause of evolution lo these 4 billion years or so. Sometimes catastrophic, from asteroid hits or mega volcanoes, sometimes slowly over tens of thousands, nay thousands of thousands of years climate has forced living organisms to adapt to their environment, or die. And so it is today, and in the years to come. Some creatures will adapt, some will not. Now we are beginning to see it before our eyes.

A consortium of governmental agencies and conservation non-profts, called the North American Bird Conservation Initiative has just released its second annual State of the Birds [pdf] report, and how climate change is affecting, and likely to affect hundreds of bird species.

  • Birds in every terrestrial and aquatic habitat will be affected by climate
    change, although individual species in each habitat are likely to respond
    differently.
  • The results indicate that a majority of birds dependent on oceans, and birds
    on Hawaiian Islands, are highly vulnerable to climate change. Birds in
    coastal, arctic/alpine, and grassland habitats, as well as those on Caribbean
    and other Pacific islands show intermediate levels of vulnerability. Most
    birds in aridlands, wetlands, and forests show lower overall vulnerability
  • All 67 oceanic bird species, including albatrosses, petrels, tropical terns,
    tropicbirds, frigatebirds, and puffins are vulnerable because of their low
    reproductive potential, use of islands for nesting, and reliance on rapidly
    changing marine ecosystems.
  • Rising sea levels are expected to inundate or fragment low-lying habitats
    such as salt marshes, sandy beaches, barrier islands, and mudflats. Increas-
    ing frequency and severity of storms and changes in water temperatures
    will impact quality and quantity of coastal habitats and alter marine food
    webs

The report is thorough, and sobering.


In separate, and confirming news, biologists from Switzerland and Pennsylvania have just issued a report following a study of 46 years of data on the size and weight of birds passing through a ringing station of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pennsylvania. Over these years, a large percentage of birds have lost weight and wing breadth, thus confirming what is known as Bergman’s Rule — that animals tend to become smaller in warmer climates.

They examined the records of 486,000 individual birds that had been caught and measured at the ringing station from 1961 to 2007.

These birds belonged to 102 species, arriving over different seasons. Each was weighed. It also had the length of its wings measured, recorded as wing chord length, or the distance between the bird’s wrist to the tip of the longest primary feather.

Their sample included local resident bird species, overwintering species, and even long distance migrants arriving from the Neotropics.

What they found was striking.

Of 83 species caught during spring migration, 60 have become smaller over the 46 year study period, weighing less and having shorter wings.

Of the 75 species migrating in autumn, 66 have become smaller.

See the BBC article for more.

One Third of U.S. Bird Species Endangered

A major report from a consortium of organizations does not offer much in the way of good news regarding the lives of birds in the U.S. Their habitats have been foreclosed, they’ve been sent out into the streets where the weather is changing, they’re not properly attired, the food is indigestible and they search in vain for familiar places to stop and take up residence.

Hawaii, the fantasy vacation isle, is the worst of all. Home to one third of all U.S. bird species, almost all are in trouble. Dozens have been declared extinct in the last decades with another 10 species which have not been seen in 40 years but have not yet been listed as extinct.

The good news is that wetland birds have shown increasing numbers in response to new understanding and application to habitat of that knowledge. The challenge is to increase the knowledge and apply it to desert, shoreline, forest and mountains where degradation by development, population and climate change is real and severe.

There’s plenty to be done, both at an individual level and by organizations and governmental bodies.

The report is a good place to start.

Birds Wintering Further North

When it comes to global warming, the canary in the coal mine isn’t a canary at all. It’s a purple finch.
purple_finch_ashokkhosla3
As the temperature across the U.S. has gotten warmer, the purple finch has been spending its winters more than 400 miles farther north than it used to.

And it’s not alone.

SF Gate

Audubon seems to be the source of the SF Gate report, with images of many of the birds, and miles shifted north.