Similar response to climate change in European and US birds

[Cara J]

Common birds in the United States and Europe have responded in similar ways to climate change in the last 30 years. “There are a lot of things that drive populations of animals to go up and down in number,” said Philip Stephens, an ecology professor at Durham University in England and lead author of a recent study published in the journal Science. “It’s difficult to tease out the effects of one particular driver.” In an effort to do so, Stephens and other collaborators from across Europe and the U.S. conducted a study to look at the fates of common bird species that could be affected by climate change. After reviewing the average climates in areas where each species was found, the team split the birds into two categories: species in which climate change seemed to be leading to more favorable climates and those where climate change was apparently leading to deteriorating climates. Abundance data including 145 common bird species in Europe and 380 common bird species in the U.S. collected by thousands of volunteers from 1980 to 2010 showed that on both continents the birds expected to do better as a result of climate change had, in fact, substantially outperformed those [...]

 

Read more: http://wildlife.org/similar-response-to-climate-change-in-european-and-u-s-birds/