Climate change fundamentally affecting European birds, study shows
Global warming is changing European birds as we know them, a study has found, but it’s not just the increase in temperature that’s to blame.
Researchers have found that garden warblers, for example, are having a quarter fewer chicks, which has huge implications for the species. Chiffchaffs are laying their eggs 12 days earlier. Some birds are decreasing in size, while others, such as redstarts, are getting larger.
Researchers pored over data collected since the mid-60s in Britain and the Netherlands on 60 different species, including the house sparrow, the crested tit, the reed bunting, the bullfinch and the willow warbler. They zero in on how these birds have changed over time with regard to their egg-laying schedules, number of offspring and morphology.
Although research has already linked the way passerines are getting smaller over time to hotter temperatures, scientists weren’t sure whether this was due to heat stress directly or because rising temperatures make it harder to forage.
Related Knowledge Center: Climate science
What began as a theory in the 1890s — that industrial emissions of carbon dioxide could increase global temperatures — had progressed to a scientific fact a century later. Scientists across a range of disciplines are studying the impact of the still-growing concentration of carbon dioxide and other so-called “greenhouse gases” in the atmosphere as they call for industrial and governmental policies to slow, then halt, the warming of the planet.