Episodes
Friday Jun 29, 2018
Friday Jun 29, 2018
As the planet gets warmer and spring comes earlier each year, birds may have to adjust their spring behaviors and migration timing to keep up with the weather! But what happens when bird populations fail to adjust their nesting and migration timing to the new, earlier advance of spring? How does a mismatch between the bird breeding season and the arrival of spring (flowers blooming, insects emerging, etc.) affect bird populations? In this episode, Ellie and Willson talk about Franks et al's study, "The sensitivity of breeding songbirds to changes in seasonal timing is linked to population change but cannot be directly attributed to the effects of trophic asynchrony on productivity."
Thursday Jun 07, 2018
Climate Change and Shifting Altitude Ranges
Thursday Jun 07, 2018
Thursday Jun 07, 2018
Is climate change pushing birds to higher elevations than they've historically occupied? Are birds that live at the tops of mountains losing habitat as higher altitudes get warmer? This month, Ellie and Willson explore these questions as they discuss the paper "Altitudinal range shifts of birds at the southern periphery of the boreal forest: 40 years of change in the Adirondak Mountains" by Kirchman and Van Keuren (2017). You can read the original article and see the graphs here: Kirchman & van Keuren 2017