Tropical Birds are Shrinking Due To Climate Change
- erudite .
- Dec 4, 2021
- 2 min read
By Ella Kang
According to the new research posted on November 12, 2021, in the journal Science Advances, scientists found out that climate change is shrinking many Amazonian birds.
Data from 1979 to 2019 for 77 non-migratory species find that tropical birds are evolving longer wings and smaller bodies as climate change continues. 36 species lost their substantial weight, more specifically 2% of their body weight per decade since 1980. All the species still exhibited some decrease in their average body mass, while some others grew longer wings.
During the 4 decades, the average temperature increased by 1 degree Celsius during the wet season and 1.65 degrees Celsius in the dry season. Precipitation also decreased by 15% in the dry season, establishing a hotter and drier climate in general.
Researchers concluded that the climatic changes overlapped with the birds’ builds, influencing their development. Other possible sources of physical changes are eliminated as the study concentrated on non-migratory bird species that spend their entire lives in the same habitat.
The researchers are uncertain what benefit the variations in wing length provide the birds, but smaller birds may have an easier time keeping cool. Smaller animals, on average, have a higher ratio of surface area to body size, therefore they disperse heat more quickly than larger creatures. In dry conditions, there may be less accessible food, like fruit or insects, resulting in a lower body size. However, more research is needed to understand how and why resident birds are responding to climate change with larger wings.
The researchers stated that “because most of the world’s ornithologists and research funding is in developed countries that are mostly temperate, there is much less research on tropical resident birds that comprise the large majority of the world’s bird species”. Such research could be a great start to the series of discoveries in tropical birds.
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