Birds are getting smaller, and it’s one of the unexpected consequences of global warming…
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:30Almost every one of these species has changed significantly through time and has gotten
00:43smaller.
00:45The reason behind this is that breeding ground temperatures have increased over the past
00:4940 years.
01:19And that's a complicated thing, but basically, as you get smaller, it's harder to make
01:49sure that you maintain your metabolic processes with the same efficiency.
01:53So the outcome of that is that smaller birds have a harder time migrating.
01:56And we think that this selection pressure has pushed these birds to become more efficient
02:02flyers.
02:03And one way to do that is through increases in wing length.
02:19And these are two sort of standard adaptive responses to climate change that we think
02:29may broadly facilitate persistence across species.
02:33However, if birds are changing their morphology just to maintain the status quo, it sort of
02:38calls their ability to adapt further, either through range shifts or changes in timing