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Evolution May Keep Birds From Becoming Roadkill


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iTech Post

Evolution May Keep Birds From Becoming Roadkill

U.S. News & World Report

The birds build clusters of mud nests on vertical walls under bridges, overpasses and railroad tracks. Their colonies often number in the thousands. Every year for the last 30 years, the researchers have traveled the same roads to collect swallows that ...

Swallows May Be Evolving to Dodge TrafficScientific American

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Are Birds Evolving To Dodge Cars?iTech Post

Discover Magazine (blog) -Green Bay Press Gazette

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Can Birds Evolve to Avoid Being Road Kill?

LiveScience.com

To avoid becoming road kill, birds may be evolving to have new traits such as shorter wingspans that allow better maneuverability, new research suggests. The researchers, who detailed their results today (March 18) in the ... The study doesn't prove ...

 

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A graph from the study showing the steep decline in road killed swallows over time, in spite of increasing populations
High-Speed Evolution: Cars Driving Change In Cliff Swallows

Discover Magazine (blog)

 

I imagine that adjusting to life around humans, with all our buildings and fast-moving transport mechanisms, is tough for a bird. It’s estimated that some 80 million birds are killed in motor vehicle collisions every year, and with an ever-growing population of people driving around and paving roads in more remote areas, things must be getting harder and harder for the animals we share our world with. But, the American Cliff Swallow (Petrochelidon pyrrhonota) isn’t one to let people ruin the neighborhood. More and more, their huge nesting populations can be found in man-made structures like bridges and overpasses, and have even become cultural fixtures in areas like California. Their new nesting sites allow them to survive even as their former habitat disappears, but it comes at a cost: by living near roadways, the birds are more at risk than ever of being on the wrong end of an oncoming vehicle.

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iTech Post

Evolution via Roadkill

Science AAAS

The new findings could also apply to birds killed by wind turbines, Hoogland adds, and they illustrate the payoff that can come with careful data collection and observation. "I think the most important lesson from this research is the paramount ...

Swallows May Be Evolving to Dodge TrafficScientific American

Birds might be evolving to dodge vehiclesRochester Democrat and Chronicle

Are Birds Evolving To Dodge Cars?iTech Post

all 34 news articles »

 

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Scientific American

Swallows May Be Evolving to Dodge Traffic

Scientific American

Together with Mary Bomberger Brown, a ornithologist at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, Brown tracked roadside populations of cliff swallows (Petrochelidon pyrrhonota) in western Nebraska for 30 years, mostly to study the birds social behaviors ...

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iTech Post

Cliff Swallows Evolve to Avoid Traffic

Wired

The new findings could also apply to birds killed by wind turbines, Hoogland adds, and they illustrate the payoff that can come with careful data collection and observation. “I think the most important lesson from this research is the paramount ...

Can Birds Evolve to Avoid Being Road Kill?LiveScience.com

Cliff swallows in their nestDiscover Magazine (blog)

Are Birds Evolving To Dodge Cars?iTech Post

all 27 news articles »

 

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Evolution may keep birds from becoming roadkill

MyFox Philadelphia

College students who use marijuana and other illegal substances, even occasionally, are more likely to leave school than students who don't dabble in drugs, new research finds. College .... The Cornell Lab of Ornithology has more about cliff swallows.

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Evolution may keep birds from becoming roadkill

Fox 54

College students who use marijuana and other illegal substances, even occasionally, are more likely to leave school than students who don't dabble in drugs, new research finds. College .... The Cornell Lab of Ornithology has more about cliff swallows.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Nature's Way: Swallows adapting to road risk

Press of Atlantic City

There are few cliffs in flat and sandy South Jersey, so we don't have the namesake nesting habitat for this bird. The nearest big colony ... And if a female produces too many eggs for her nest, she might lay one in another nest nearby or even pick one ...

 

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  • 1 month later...

Evolution Driven by Humans' Unnatural Selections

Discovery News

One bird may be evolving to dodge vehicles. Over the last 30 years, a decreasing number of cliff swallows have been killed along roads in southwestern Nebraska, according to research published in Current Biology. At the same time, ornithologists' ...

 

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