From the USGS: Who Will Come to Your Bird Feeder in 2075?
Released: 11/5/2014
The distribution of birds in the United States today will probably look very different in 60 years as a result of climate, land use and land cover changes.
A new U.S. Geological Survey study predicts where 50 bird species will breed, feed and live in the conterminous U.S. by 2075. While some types of birds, like the Baird’s sparrow, will likely lose a significant amount of their current U.S. range, other ranges could nearly double. Human activity will drive many of these shifts. The study was published today in the journal PLOS ONE.
“Habitat loss is a strong predictor of bird extinction at local and regional scales,” said Terry Sohl, a USGS scientist and the author of the report. “Shifts in species’ ranges over the next several decades will be more dramatic for some bird species than others.”
Climate change will cause average temperatures to change by three degrees to seven degrees Fahrenheit by 2075, depending upon scenario and location within the conterminous U.S. Temperature increases will drive breeding ranges for many species to the north. Precipitation will increase in some regions and decline in others, resulting in substantial impacts on local and regional habitat.
Habitats for birds currently breeding in the far southern U.S., such as the desert-dwelling Gambel’s quail and cactus wren, will expand greatly by 2075 in the conterminous U.S. as a warming climate moves the overall range to the north. The chestnut-collared longspur, sharp-tailed grouse and gray partridge could all lose over 25 percent of their suitable breeding range in the northern U.S. as climate becomes more suitable in Canada for these species. The Baird’s sparrow may lose almost all of its current U.S. range.
Landscape changes resulting largely from human activity, including land use and land cover changes, will also significantly affect future U.S. bird distributions. The effects of landscape change will be more scattered, with very high loss of habitat at local and regional scales.
“Changing landscape patterns such as deforestation and urban growth are likely to have at least as large of an impact on future bird ranges as climate change for many species,” Sohl said.
The new study used climate and landscape data to create and compare U.S. distribution maps of 50 bird species in 2001 and 2075. The maps for each species are available online.
The species that will either gain or lose more than 20 percent of their conterminous U.S. ranges as compared to 2001 are:
- Gambel’s quail: 61.8 percent gain
- Cactus wren: 54.1 percent gain
- Scissor-tailed flycatcher: 46.4 percent gain
- Gray vireo: 44.9 percent gain
- Painted bunting: 38.5 percent gain
- Anna’s hummingbird: 27.2 percent gain
- Black-capped chickadee: 21 percent loss
- Ferruginous hawk: 21.2 percent loss
- Sora: 22.8 percent loss
- Northern harrier: 24.7 percent loss
- Bobolink: 24.9 percent loss
- Short-eared owl: 26.2 percent loss
- Vesper sparrow: 26.4 percent loss
- Savannah sparrow: 27.2 percent loss
- Sedge wren: 29 percent loss
- Gray partridge: 35.6 percent loss
- Sharp-tailed grouse: 44.8 percent loss
- Chestnut-collared longspur: 54.1 percent loss
- Baird’s sparrow: 90.8 percent loss
For more information on species distribution modeling, please visit the USGS Earth Resources Observation and Science Center website.
U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Geological Survey
Office of Communications and Publishing
12201 Sunrise Valley Dr, MS 119
Reston, VA 20192
And on a lighter note…
I couldn’t bring myself to read it all so I didn’t see if they mention how many birds will be chopped out of the sky by all the new wonderful earth saving windmills. (should I put sarc?)
James Bull
Lets take just one example of the breeds they mention the Gray partridge
This is a bird that thrives in almost ANY climate. They eat insects and seeds and live in areas
ranging from southern Europe and the southern states of North America to Scandinavia
and Canada.
They are ground nesting, typically in hedgerows and field margins so the main reason for decline
in those areas where this has happened is loss of breeding habitat. As for climate they are hardy
critters who can live anywhere they can find food.
How on earth could a 2 deg C rise in temperature hurt a species that thrives in Southern Greece
and Norway ?
First, Gray Partridge are not found in southern states of North America. They go no further south than the Nebraska/Kansas border. They strongly prefer cool, dry conditions, and do not tolerate high summer temperatures or high summer precip, such as that found in southern states. Wet conditions particularly have a strong negative impact on nesting success. Clearly climate conditions already limit distribution, and a changing climate, with warmer temps and increased precip, will affect nesting success in the southern part of their range. Expansion to the north is likely, given that severe winter weather is another limiting factor and is likely to decline in the future.
This morning’s London Times has a ‘study’ from UEA that warns of the ‘end of orchids’ due to climate change.
“A 2 degree warming would cause male bees to emerge earlier so they are less well synchronised with the orchids.”.
This seems to presume that the orchid will not respond to climate change too and open earlier.
From the ‘gimmie the money and run dept’ of UEA.
you only have to look at bees in hotter cites to see if this is true.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/jun/23/can-cities-save-bees
I believe that a better use of academic time and taxpayer’s money at UEA would be an investigation of the cause of global Colony Collapse Disorder which puts much of the world’s fruit and vegetables at risk, not just orchids. Rather than spending money on a non-existent temperature rise affecting bees they could try to establish whether or not nicotinoids are causing the very obvious loss of bee colonies. (UEA is also the home of the Food Research Institute – or used to be when I was a young worker in that sector)
Some studies suggest these as a cause , but the case is unproven and will remain so as far as the UK Govt is concerned if it continues to squander its declining resources on a dubious AGW agenda.
Global Colony Collapse Disorder. My theory: It’s due to lack of genetic diversity caused by the use of hives instead of traditional bee shelters. Hives were introduced around the 1860s.
Bee shelters allowed bees to swarm together and swap swarms – also allowed workers to swap information between colonies.
Hives are more efficient for honey production but don’t allow the bees to wander between colonies so easily.
Modern bees (the Buckfast) are largely derived from that Monk in Devon’s work about 100 years ago.
It isn’t so long as that genetic disorder would be unlikely or so short as that it wouldn’t have been able to become prevalent.
And MALE bees are not workers….they don’t pollinate….they are more like alarmists…(:>))
From Wiki
“A class of strategy of great biological interest is that of sexual deception, where plants, generally orchids, produce remarkably complex combinations of pheromonal attractants and physical mimicry that induce male bees or wasps to attempt to mate with them, conveying pollinia in the process. Examples are known from all continents apart from Antarctica, though Australia appears to be exceptionally rich in examples.[11]”
As a general rule, male bees and wasps are less efficient pollinators than females or workers, but they do visit flowers and can be important pollinators. For example, bumble bee drones are useful late season pollinators (males are produced in mass in the fall as colonies breakup and pollination ‘services’ from workers declines). Also, as ‘Just and engineer notes’, there are a number of orchids that look and smell like female wasps or bees and take advantage of randy males attempting to copulate with them. However, as ‘Jazznick’ implies it seems strange that highly specialised orchid pollination systems – which must have taken a long time to evolve – would be susceptible to a few degrees warming given that they have survived much larger changes in the past. The press release is just another house of cards built on ‘could be’s’ instead of real bees and designed to make a shonky study seem more important than it is. It is just more crying wolf while the real threats to orchid pollination (undoubtedly habitat destruction is at the top) are ignored.
Does any body have any facts on how long Orchids have survived so far? Seems to me they’ve probably survived rougher conditions than the present worst case scenario could deal out.
it seems like temp rise pushes birds to live in the cities which can be up to 10- 20 degrees hotter than the countryside.
http://www.birdsandblooms.com/birding/birding-hotspots/city-birds-in-urban-birding-hotspots/
“Portland, Oregon. From great blue herons living along rivers in town to swifts roosting in local chimneys, Portland finds ways to celebrate all kinds of urban birds.
New York City. America’s biggest city hosts an astonishing variety of birds, especially in parks like Central Park, where organized bird walks are held almost every day in spring and fall.
Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Its location along Lake Michigan makes this a prime birding city all year. From ducks and gulls in winter to migrating hawks in fall and warblers in spring, there are always birds to see in Milwaukee’s parks and nature centers.
Tucson, Arizona. Since 2001, Tucson has organized a citywide bird count every spring. Cactus wrens, verdins, curve-billed thrashers and other desert birds thrive even in the heart of town.
Austin, Texas. Austin is famous for live music and other cultural highlights, but it’s also a hub of birding activity. Lakes and parks along the Colorado River bring abundant bird life to the city center.
St. Petersburg, Florida. Surrounded on three sides by the waters of Tampa Bay, the city teems with birds in all seasons, including pelicans, egrets, ospreys and more. Migration brings warblers and other songbirds to every park in town”
Given birds evolved from dinosoars, I think they will be all find in 2075.
Where are all the dinosaurs now? Oh yeah…they couldn’t adapt to changing conditions and all died out. Good analogy!!
Fortunately for the birds, they don’t listen to the USGS.
Fortunately for science and humanity’s future, the USGS doesn’t listen to armchair scientists either…
They have not been to my yard. I do not have “bird feeders”, I have “birds as food”. The cats love the Blue Jays.
That does not work so well in Australia/New Zealand. Cat’s ARE a real problem here/there. When I lived in New Zealand and owned a cat (Rescued) I strapped a collar to him (And he faught me tooth and claw) that had bells and shiny objects on it. It was so funny watching him stalk birds in the garden. He never caught a single bird, native or otherwise. Owners should be more responsible. I had him “seen to”…lol…what a day that was! Of his three other brothers, he’s the only one who still lives.
Conspicuously absent from the list are crows, magpies, and Spetzer’s cowbirds. Listing only desirable species marks the report as propaganda.
[snip . . using multiple alias is against site rules. . mod]
Not intential, the first time didn’t show up just entering info, then it asked me to log in with a WordPress login, which I had. Didn’t mean to reply with 2 aliases, but now am logged in and will reply with just WordPress.
[snip . . you are using two handles. That is against site rules and common decency . . mod]
Hard to analyze a species that doesn’t exist…”Spetzer’s Cowbird”. Note the list does include Brown-headed Cowbird, about as undesirable a species as there is. Don’t make up issues that don’t exist.
The list published in this thread did not include the cowbird.
I called it Spetzer’s Cowbird because Spetzer mentioned it.
“Don’t make up issues that don’t exist.” Like ‘Hard to analyze a species that doesn’t exist…”Spetzer’s Cowbird”.’
Yada. Yada. Yada.
[snip – we don’t care, take your snark elsewhere -mod]
The USGS was the premier geology and natural resources arm of the US government…50 years ago. Geologists, like me, aspired to work for the USGS upon graduation so we would be exposed to the best. The wheels of this bus came off long ago, You would be hard pressed to find a (rock) geologist on the phone list these days. This article is evidence that the once proud USGS has gone to the birds!
None of these scare stories consider that the tropics have the largest variety of species, largely because the extinction rate is lower there- less survival pressure. As the “Porgy and Bess” song goes,
“Summertime…. and the livin’ is easy .”
Such a nice song.
Mr “anti-carbon” reports on a new plant. Must have been all that CO2, or not, or maybe all that tax, or not. http://www.smh.com.au/environment/sydney-regions-first-new-plant-find-in-decades-20141107-11ii10.html
I just sneezed.
Note also that the National Geographic Society has wandered afar as well. Nat Geo Mag has had articles on artificial limbs, sleep disorders, etc. They seem to be Popular Psychology/Popular Medicine wannabes.
I’m going to run out and put up a bird feeder right now!
When I’m 121 I’ll let you know if they’re right.
Just a thought…perhaps one of you might actually want to read the actual study? Nah…that’s asking too much. Don’t want to clutter things up with fact.
Mr. Watts provided a synopsis. There is no reason to read further.
Uh…That’s exactly the point of the paper, that birds will move north as climate changes.
Mr. Watts just copied and pasted the USGS press release, about the level of his k owl edge on the subject.
Sorry Sdakotab; but I’ve got to rewrite your statement to make it more accurate.
“That’s exactly the point of the paper, that birds will move north IF climate changes.”
And that “if” is only valid when the world continues to warm over the nexty 60 years at the rate assumed (guessed, projected, predicted).
Other “ifs” that would not validate the paper are:
If the world does not warm.
If the world cools.
If the population of the US doesn’t act according to the model assumptions.
If the farming practices do not prgress as assumed in the model assumptions.
If a million other things don’t proceed as assumed in the model assumptions.
The whole thing is projection. This is not science. It’s rubbish.
Oh so although they predict (incorrectly) a temperature change, they them act as if the birds won’t have enough sense to follow the climate band they thrive in? Idiots
Man…that’s the entire point of the paper, dude. That birds will follow warming temps north. Sigh…
This is the sort of B$ the RSPB publishes. Stopped my sub 7 years ago.