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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Doug Allen says:
December 9, 2011 at 6:58 am
…..As a lifelong conservationist and environmental educator, I realize, with some sadness, that we can not preserve all threatened habitats, but, at the very least, we can understand what the real threats are. I sincerely hope Anthony’s readers here do not become alienated from traditional conservationism because of the fear mongering of the green extremists and climate catastrophists.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Actually many of us are traditional conservationists in mind set and that is why we are so ANGRY!
On my farm I have barred owls, grey fox, a bear, bobcats, bluebirds, blue heron, red tail hawks and I even had the privilege of seeing a bald eagle sitting on a pole just down the road.
The buying up of African, South American and soon USA farmland to plant eucalyptus, including a genetically modified variety that withstands freezing, has me frothing at the mouth because it will wreck the ecology of the areas. It is considered a “Weed” in the USA. (Never mind the starvation problem caused by planting farmland in a difficult to kill tree.)
Eucalptus oil “misted from the trees” kills undergrowth plants except for poison oak and even a goat will not eat it.
EVILS of transplanting Eucalptus to Africa
SEE: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/09/25/they-had-to-burn-the-village-to-save-it-from-global-warming/#comment-754959
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/10/13/borlaug-2-0/#comment-767559
My bird feeder told me that birds tend to go where the food is.
This study is online at –> http://tinyurl.com/cnw6y42
‘Land use conversion had destroyed some of the lower elevation sites from 1969. The 2010 survey did not have time to survey two sites at 900 m and 1130 m. For comparisons, we only used the data from five sites, at 690 m, 1310 m, 1570 m, 1970 m and 2220 m, sampled on both occasions ‘.
This truncation of the data, cutting out 2/7ths of the samples in the lower 1/2 of the elevations alone could account for their findings, basic statistics. That is, if the findings were in fact significant — 49 meters? 150 ft? way too close to nothing for me.
G. Karst says:
December 9, 2011 at 7:55 am
As I read it, the birds were there because of shade and water. The water ran out, the adult birds left, the immature birds stayed and perished. Like all animals water is the critical factor.
As in human reality… the foolish young birdbrains perish.
The wise old bird lives to breed the females, sip the nectar.
Stupidity kills, always has. GK
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Somehow your response doesn’t surprise me.
Here’s another one.
http://www.perthnow.com.au/news/western-australia/blistering-heat-blamed-for-deaths-of-carnaby-cockatoos/story-e6frg13u-1225824802941
You said you had never heard of birds dying from warmth : now you have.
ozspeaksup says:
December 9, 2011 at 3:44 am
“actually a week or more of 40C temps and a drought you will see sparrows and finches and other birds falling off their perches and dying, it does happen in Aus,…….”
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Yet, this “warmists” wet dream has not been caught on video ?
I wonder why.
Cus it never happened ??
I’m not sure if it is true everywhere, but in Chicago when it is really hot, the birds keep their beaks open to let out their body heat.
Even better than a weather rock, if the birds have open beaks it is hot.
u.k.(us) says:
December 9, 2011 at 4:44 pm
Yet, this “warmists” wet dream has not been caught on video ?
I wonder why.
Cus it never happened ??
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It’s not a “wet dream” old son. (Do you have some sort of problem?)
It’s not uncommon on the Nullabor for example, It’s only when it happens in populated areas that it gets any attention.
Of course you know better, don’t you.
SPM says:
December 9, 2011 at 5:51 pm
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Do you, or do you not, have any proof of the claims.
I’ve never been “down under”, certainly it is my loss.
OK, but that is the last one. I am not about to become a dead bird debunker… full-time!
About 200 very decomposed stinking bird carcasses were found in two large areas. Again from your own reference:
Look… if mass bird deaths happens because of heat, while water and shade plus good ventilation is available, it would be very rare indeed.
When rivers get very low, the fish hole up in the pools. If they choose a pool smaller than required for the particular drought, they perish. Nature is so cruel for the stupid. (I know stupid isn’t the correct term but I like the overall effect) GK
SPM says:
December 9, 2011 at 3:41 pm
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It is amazing how many different birds you see when you point a pair of binoculars at birds.
SPM – The PerthNow article you cite concludes, “Therefore the cause of the bird deaths remain inconclusive.”
Parrots, in any case, like the heat. And cities…
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Birds flock to food-rich city
By Melissa Fyfe, Environment Reporter, April 19, 2004
Rainbow lorikeets are bucking the trend. While humans opt for the city-to-country seachange, these rowdy parrots are choosing the big smoke. And they’re loving it.
The flashy lorikeets are moving into Melbourne, Adelaide, Brisbane, Sydney and Canberra in greater numbers than ever before – well adapted, it seems, to the urban lifestyle.
Reasons behind this shift are being unravelled by the Australian Research Centre for Urban Ecology and the University of Melbourne. The puzzle is of particular interest in Melbourne because for decades the bird disappeared from the city.
Common in Melbourne when the settlers arrived, by the 1920s the rainbow lorikeet had gone. Sightings after that were thought to be aviary escapees. In the 1970s the parrot came back. They are now more abundant in the city than before white settlement.
One reason for this population explosion could be that these tropical and sub-tropical birds are attracted to the “heat island” effect of the city’s warmth-radiating tar and cement. “Conditions in Melbourne have become more sub-tropical and much warmer than surrounding areas,” said ecology honours student Pavlina Shukuroglou. “I think they are liking that.”
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/04/18/1082226635772.html
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In defense of ozspeakup, I haven’t seen a sparrow in Melbourne for years, though I have never seen one fall from the sky on a hot day. I suspect drought was the main reason for the explosion of parrots and the corresponding decline of sparrows.
u.k.(us), G Karst,
So in addition to all your scientific expertise you are now avian experts. I should have known.
Maybe you could apply some of your skeptical skills to somebody like Monckton : hours of fun for all the family.
Khwarizmi says:
December 9, 2011 at 8:16 pm
The Department’s senior wildlife officer Kevin Morrison said laboratory tests had not revealed an obvious cause of death.
“Tests conducted by the Chemistry Centre on tissue samples from the dead birds have so far ruled out pesticides and chemicals including organophosphates, organochlorines and heavy metals as possible causes of death,” Mr Morrison said…………….
“The process of ruling out possible causes enables us to narrow down what may have killed the birds, as there is no definitive test that can be done to establish whether heat stress was the actual cause. Therefore the cause of the bird deaths remain inconclusive.”
Looks like they can’t put it down to anything else…………
As for the parrots, we’re overrun with Rainbow Lorikeets and I love sight and sound of them.
I doubt UHI would generate enough additional heat to justify the move, so I suppose it is climate change. Last summer and so far this summer, Melbourne has been a little more than tropical.
The real reason I suspect though is food.
As for the Sparrows, maybe they fell victim to the Indian Mynah.
One does not need to be an expert to utilize critical thinking. Try it.
They tried to eliminate a few common herbicides and pesticides. That hardly rules out the multitude of possible causes for the bird demise. That is why they had to rule these deaths as inconclusive. I can’t help it if you cannot come up with one example where birds died due to warmth alone. Just shows how rare such an occurrence is. To state confidently the opposite is just plain bird-brained and wrong. Try to employ some critical thinking. Skepticism is not a bad thing. It keeps us all from becoming bird-brained. GK
SPM says:
December 9, 2011 at 10:22 pm
u.k.(us), G Karst,
So in addition to all your scientific expertise you are now avian experts. I should have known.
Maybe you could apply some of your skeptical skills to somebody like Monckton : hours of fun for all the family.
===========
Actually, it is much simpler.
A thirst for knowledge.
Oh, groan. Tropical birds? During Global Warming (or cooling) the tropics’ temperature hardly budges. All the swing is at higher latitudes.
This is getting asinine.
It seems that there is a LOT of ornithologists commenting here…if there are so many reasons that this study is useless you guys should write a reply in a per-review journal instead of criticizing with absolute no other data then your own personal beliefs…
You just don’t get it… Do you?
Skeptics don’t really need data, for the very good reason: They have nothing to prove! That is the sole responsibility and duty, of those asserting the conjecture/hypothesis.
Skeptics are merely demanding data and evidence to support the CO2 CAGW conjecture, so that it can, at least, be regarded as a valid hypothesis. You might say, we are trying to help. GK