A small bird and eating insects that reproduce in Alberta is migrating early, an altered exit time, which according to researchers suggests that climate change has forced the species to adapt.
New research on the minimum overturter sheds light on how the climatic patterns of warming have changed the way in which these birds divide their time between their summer habitats in Canada and wintering land in Mexico and Central America.
The article, published last month at the Wilson Journal of Ornithology, is the last in a growing collection of studies that illustrate how climate change has altered the migratory patterns of birds.
The study shows that the adult birds of the flock are directed south at the beginning of autumn, two weeks before what would have done it 32 years ago.
The investigation was carried out in association with the Beaverhill Bird Observatory, the second oldest migration monitoring observatory in Canada.
The Observatory, located in the southeast of Edmonton, has monitored bird populations in the area since the 1980s.
“Because we have three decades of data, we can look to see if there is any change at that time,” said Geoffrey Holroyd, co -author of the study, research scientist and president of the BeAverhill Bird Observatory.
“And, in fact, that is what we find. Adults now go completely two weeks before 30 years ago.”
Changing patterns
The altered pattern in migration for the least squeaky serves as a warning about the future of thousands of migratory birds, who travel hundreds or thousands of kilometers on their annual trips, Holroyd said.
Researchers have already tracked similar migratory changes in other species, including blue mountain birds and Sierra owls.
Scientists believe that birds take their signal to leave a variety of factors, including sunlight, climate and health of their habitat. But as the weather changes, these delicate calculations are interrupted.
When these critical cycles change, birds run the risk of synchronization with the resources they need to survive, Holroyd said.
Researchers say they are seeing the impact of climate change through changing migratory patterns of birds.
Birds that migrate early, for example, can face mortal storms on their north trips. Extreme heat during the early incubation season can mean that it is simply too scorching for some young people to survive.
Holroyd said researchers believe that the minimum pilot can arrive before spring, allowing an anterior exit hour.
“We still don’t know why,” he said.
“Our next step is to explore our 30 years of data and see why. Why can adults leave two weeks before? They arrive before? Are they neither before?”
Holroyd said there are many questions about the viability of bird species under threat of climate change, but the threats are many. His critical humans reduce their impacts on bird populations, he said.
A bird in hand
The BeAverhill study was based on data from more than 7,000 bands of bands. The forested region surrounding the observatory on the southeast edge of Lake Beaverhill serves as a cultivation broth for these slight singing birds.
Researchers use large fog networks made of mesh to carefully capture birds, join their legs and record their weight, size and sex, allowing the observatory to track when the birds arrive in the spring and leave each fall.
Municipal politicians throughout Canada have written a letter to the five main leaders of the Federal Party who urge them to address climate change along with economic and security concerns in this election.
There have always been differences of time between its starting times for the species, but climate change seems to be expanding the gap, Holroyd said.
Together with the previous migration, the investigation also found that the adult birds emigrated 13 days ahead of the young birds that were born that year. Meanwhile, adult women left south five days before adult men.
Males stay longer to claim a territory, while young people probably need more time to improve their insect hunting skills before heading south, Holroyd said.
The youngest are simply doddling more, while adults are quickly cleaning. “– Geoffrey Holroyd
“After they finish nesting, adults leave immediately because they want to reach their wintering ground so they can move their feathers. But young people are not in a hurry,” said Holroyd.
“Adults leave here and run through eastern Canada on the road south. The youngest are simply doddling more, while adults are clearing Dodge quickly.”
The smallest of its kind in Eastern North America, the minimum pilot has nests grouped in territories throughout Canada from the Yukon and northwest to the south to the border of the United States and to the east to Newfoundland.
It is known that olive and gray birds, with one wingspan of more than 20 centimeters, sing incessantly during the summer with a registered trademark. Che-Beck, and hatch their young people in cortex made, twigs, grass condemned with cobwebs.
Its populations have been reduced in recent decades. Partners in Flight, which focuses on the conservation of terrestrial bird species, classifies at least squeaky as one in a strong decline.
Federal reproduction surveys have registered a 54 percent drop in the population compared to the early 1970s and is considered a priority species for the Bird Conservation Initiative of North America.
‘It has never been more important’
Jeff Skevington, a bird researcher and president of Ontario field ornithologists, said the study provides an important vision of a disconcerting question about the adaptability of bird species under threat.
He said the study should serve as a template for future investigations. He said that observatories such as Beaverhill sites are well equipped to track the complex changes that now take place among so many species in Canada.
“For the data they collected, you must have the bird in your hand,” he said.
He said that the scientific community needs to work together, since populations throughout the continent face strong losses.
“It probably has never been more important, if we are going to stop any of these decreases,” said Skevington.
“It is the scientific documents like these who are really going to push the envelope in our understanding how deep these changes are.”
