From Duke University , another Durban doozy, yes we’ll have roasted fowl in the trees because they may not be moving fast enough.
DURHAM, N.C. — Tropical birds are moving to higher elevations because of climate change, but they may not be moving fast enough, according to a new study by Duke University researchers.
The study, published Thursday in the peer-reviewed online journal PLoS ONE, finds that the birds aren’t migrating as rapidly as scientists previously anticipated, based on recorded temperature increases.
The animals instead may be tracking changes in vegetation, which can only move slowly via seed dispersal.
“This is the first study to evaluate the effects of warming on the elevation ranges of tropical birds,” said Stuart Pimm, Doris Duke Professor of conservation ecology at Duke’s Nicholas School of the Environment and a co-author of the study. “It provides new evidence of their response to warming, but also shows there is a delay in their response.”
Evidence from temperate areas, such as North America and Europe, shows that many animal and plant species are adapting to climate change by migrating northward, breeding earlier or flowering earlier in response to rising temperatures.
“However, our understanding of the response of tropical birds to warming is still poor,” said German Forero-Medina, a Ph.D. student at Duke’s Nicholas School who is lead author of the new study. “Moving to the north doesn’t help them, because tropical temperatures do not change very much with latitude. So moving up to higher elevations is the only way to go, but there are few historical data that can serve as baselines for comparison over time.”
What is going on with tropical species at higher altitudes is important, Forero-Medina said, because about half of all birds species live 3,500 feet or more above sea level, and of these species, more than 80 percent may live within the tropics.
In 2010, the authors of the new study and a team of biologists participated in an expedition to the summit of the remote Cerros del Sira mountains in central Peru – a place visited by only a few ornithologists on prior occasions. The complex topography, geology and climate of the mountains have produced isolated patches of habitat with unique avian communities and distinct taxa.
Forero-Medina and his colleagues used survey data collected on bird species in the region in the 1970s by John Terborgh, research professor emeritus at Duke, to compare past and present distributions.
“Using John Terborgh’s groundbreaking data — the first ever collected from this region –gave us a unique opportunity to understand the effects of 40 years of warming on tropical birds,” Forero-Medina says.
The biologists found that although the ranges of many bird species have shifted uphill since Terborgh’s time, the shifts fell short of what scientists had projected based on temperature increases over the four decades.
“This may be bad news,” Pimm said. “Species may be damned if they move to higher elevations to keep cool and then simply run out of habitat. But, by staying put, they may have more habitat but they may overheat.”
CITATION: “Elevational Ranges of Birds on a Tropical Montane Gradient Lag Behind Warming Temperatures” German Forero-Medina, John Terborgh, S. Jacob Socolar & Stuart L. Pimm. PLoS ONE, Dec. 7, 2011.
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I’m incredulous at this statement:
Pimm said. “Species may be damned if they move to higher elevations to keep cool and then simply run out of habitat. But, by staying put, they may have more habitat but they may overheat.”
Do you mean to tell me that birds cannot survive a 1-3 degree increase in average temperature after being able to survive millions of years in temperature ranges from 32-110 degrees?
I cannot even believe that this is a serious statement.
Typical bird brains!
Why can’t they realize that by flying just a few miles away from the equator, they can experience temperatures that they like, instead of the infernal 0.7 degrees hotter temperatures in the places where there food is growing.
Yes, we have massive die offs every spring when the temps start going up.
Birds are such skeptics.
I read as far as ‘conservation biology’ then I had to stop.
Don’t you love the way these articles implicitly adopt
the ‘climate change’ = ‘global warming’ mantra?
Yes it WAS getting warmer, DECADES ago, in SOME places,
but it was never global, it was never a mere matter of avg temp changing,
but of changes in seasonal onset, amounts and timing of rain and droughts, etc..
Whatever USED TO prompt those animals or plants to move is OVER.
Projecting some grand generalizations on short-term regional biotic changes
is bad enough, but projecting them into a scorching fantasy-future
is not science, not even science fiction, just pure climatological fantasy,
funded by tax-hungry, control-obsessed, power-mad government elites.
Of course, another interpretation would be “birds exploit higher altitudes for the first time in recent memory – higher temperatures have allowed birds to migrate into areas otherwise hostile to them.”
Glass half full or half empty?
Clearly, the environments in which these animals have adapted are changing, as a result of climate change and land uses which disturb their habitats. This is a serious matter for these creatures and should not be trivialized in any way. Some species will not be able to adapt to dramatically changed environmental conditions, and their existence is threatened. We should all, be concerned with this reality, because it affects everyone.
Looks like the birds are smarter than the scientists.
About as much use as studying “climate change” affecting Hockey game attendance. Who’s paying for this?
Welfare for Academics.
This is from the Onion. Right?
Of course it can’t be anything like their predictions were wrong???
Strange? According to Sir David Attenborough last night on Frozen Planet, he openly admitted that nature was “adapting” to Climate Change, but the question he posed was could we? So if HE says nature is adapting, then I guess it must be, clever old Mother Nature, no wonder she has lasted 4,500 million years, & we only a couple of million tops!
This stuff reminds me of reports by the UK’s RSPB a few years ago, (forgive, if this is a repeat) that AGW was reducing bird populatons around the UK. Then it turned out “quietly” that local bird populations of Sparrows, Hedge & Common, Starlings, Thrushes, etc, were the victims of habitat destruction from people concreting over their gardens to make them convenient to maintain or to park a car(s) off-road out front, tree removel by Local Authorities (Councils) for safety reasons & reducing maintenance costs, & on top of that, the feral cat population was increasing, thus reducing the chances of birds to survive! We have an abundance of wild life & bird populations down here in the South West in Cream Tea country (Devon), I have plenty of trees on my small area of land (1/4 acre) shrubs & bushes, that the birds just love! The urban garden these days is not good for birds in lots of cases, barring parks & formal gardens, etc! Yet another case of wrongful attribution to suit the warmistas!
Off Topic – I had to attend a site inspection visit for some trial pits for a client for a new-build bespoke timber framed house/studio/workshop last Tuesday! It was interesting to listen to the geotech guy talking about the beautiful red (oxidised haemetite)/grey (un-oxidised haematite)Triassic head clays we excavated (not me personally of course – that wouldn’t do! :-)) how the clay was over 200 million years old, & it was only a metre & a half below ground level!! Makes you think, doesn’t it?
People will be standing outside holding platters waiting for yummy cooked birds to fall out of the sky.
Myna from heaven.
Good night. Maybe they are not migrating because it is not getting hotter. Or did I miss something.
I am amazed that anyone would consider handing out grant money for such a feather brained study.
Last time I had seen logic this good was “If she weighed the same as a duck…”
1. The temp. changes are not what they think they are.
2. The birds really don’t care about a few tenths of a degree temp change.
3. Got to get back to work and reading this non-sense makes my head hurt.
“The animals instead may be tracking changes in vegetation, which can only move slowly via seed dispersal.”
Follow the food.
Warning: Sarcasm Ahead !
Then, again, it may NOT be bad news. Certainly it would be bad news if they lost funding because they didn’t include bogus and extraneous AGW claims in their paper or press release,
Hmmm a whole 49 meters versus “expected” 152 meters elevation shift ? That sounds pretty thin – like within normal variability range just like the likely trivial increase in temperature. A grand total of one transect in which case, how would they KNOW anything about variability ? Call me skeptical on N = 1. How many of these scientists don’t understand elementary sampling theory required to draw particular conclusions ? FAIL !
Wait for it — “33 species moved up, versus 15 that moved down” . Presumably the species that moved downslope were immediately incinerated due to the purported 0.79°C warming.
I have never seen birds (other than overcrowded chickens/turkeys) die and fall to the ground, due to warmth. I have, however, one -40 F day, observed sparrows and chickadees, drop one by one, to the ground due to the killing cold. Warming is a pleasant walk in the park. GK
Maybe the scientists have the wrong temperatures and it really didn’t heat up as much so the birds didn’t move up as much. This brings us to a whole new proxy. Lets build a proxy for climate based on the changing altitude of bird habitat.
> Eric Seufert says: “Lets build a proxy for climate based on the changing altitude of bird habitat.”
I LIKE it – a lot ! Wait ….how can we use it to get paleo data accurate to .01 degree though ?
Is this the long anticipated answer to the question “What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?”
If this is what passes for “peer reviewed” science these days then science is in big trouble. What an absolute load of nonsense. I can only assume that thousands of birds die every morning when the sun comes up. Pathetic drivel.
Population and/or predator (rats and cats in particular) pressures are more likely to have to do with this shift, if there really is a shift, then the less then one degree warming shown by a couple of thermometers next to air conditioning units at the UEA.
Of course a bird that is used to feed on certain plants is not going to move further then he has to. Uphill or downhill. So if there is a real shift of any kind it will be a slow one. Otherwise he will die, not of a heatstroke but of hunger.
Why is everything these days explained as “caused by rising temperatures”?
What happened to good old common sense?