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Many animal species bury their eggs, for a number of different reasons. While it is firmly established that Eurasian penduline tits bury them because of sexual conflict, their Chinese counterparts seem to have an entirely different reason. Experimental manipulations show that for these birds burial prevents the eggs from falling out of the nest in strong winds. View the full article -
Wildlife watchers generally welcome species that have arrived in the UK due to climate change, new research suggests. View the full article
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Researchers have helped design an app to protect birds at risk of extinction across the world by breaking down language barriers between scientists. View the full article
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Researchers have developed the maps at a fine-enough resolution to help conservation managers focus their efforts where they are most likely to help birds -- in individual counties or forests, rather than across whole states or regions. View the full article
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One of the most contentious questions in evolutionary biology is, how did the Amazon become so rich in species? A new study focused on birds examines how the movements of rivers in the Amazon have contributed to that area's exceptional biological diversity. The researchers found that as small river systems change over time, they spur the evolution of new species. The findings also reveal previously unknown bird species in the Amazon that are only found in small areas next to these dynamic river systems, putting them at high risk. View the full article
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Research shows a statistical link between diet, habitat, social behavior and mating systems in birds. View the full article
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Deep in a Panamanian rain forest, bird populations have been quietly declining for 44 years. A new study shows a whopping 70% of understory bird species declined in the forest between 1977 and 2020. And the vast majority of those are down by half or more. View the full article
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A groundbreaking study reveals that without birds and bees working together, some traveling thousands of miles, coffee farmers would see a whopping 25% drop in crop yields. Coffee is bigger and more plentiful when birds and bees team up to protect and pollinate coffee plants. The study is also the first to show, with real-world experiments, that the contributions of nature -- ie. from bees and birds -- are larger combined than their individual contributions. This suggests researchers may be underestimating how much the environment benefits society. View the full article
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Male zebra finches learn their song by imitating conspecifics. To stand out in the crowd, each male develops its own unique song. Because of this individual-specific song, it was long assumed that dialects do not exist in zebra finches. However, with the help of an artificial intelligence technique, researchers have now been able to show that the songs of four different zebra finch populations differ systematically. They also discovered that these 'cryptic dialects' are decisive for the females' choice of mate. Thus, female zebra finches pay more attention to a cultural trait than to male appearance. View the full article
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GPS tracking of Caspian terns showed that male parents carry the main responsibility for leading young during their first migration from the Baltic Sea to Africa. View the full article
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By comparing century-old eggs preserved in museum collections to modern observations, scientists were able to determine that about a third of the bird species nesting in Chicago have are laying their eggs a month earlier than they were a hundred years ago. As far as the researchers can tell, the culprit in this shift is climate change. View the full article
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An international research team has studied the flight behavior of the mysterious black swift. They found, among other things, that the black swift rises to extreme heights during a full moon, seemingly catching insects in the moonlight. And, during a lunar eclipse, the birds simultaneously lost altitude. View the full article
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A team of scientists has constructed a robot leg that, like its natural model, is very energy efficient. BirdBot benefits from a foot-leg coupling through a network of muscles and tendons that extends across multiple joints. In this way, BirdBot needs fewer motors than previous legged robots and could, theoretically, scale to large size. View the full article
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Poisoning caused by preying on or scavenging animals shot by hunters using lead ammunition has left the populations of many raptors – or birds of prey – far smaller than they should be, according to the first study to calculate these impacts across Europe. View the full article
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A new study has found that oil palm can be farmed more sustainably on peatlands by re-wetting the land - conserving both biodiversity and livelihoods. View the full article
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A new study rolls back the curtain on half a century of evidence detailing the impact of climate change on more than 60 different bird species. It found that half of all changes to key physical and behavioral bird characteristics since the 1960s can be linked to climate change. View the full article
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Sex roles in birds describe sex differences in courtship, mate competition, social pair-bonds, and parental care. Different explanations have been put forward to explain these differences but none are based on a comprehensive study. Therefore, an international team of experts set out to analyse data on 1,800 of the approximately 9,000 different species of birds as their study organisms. View the full article
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A new study has found that higher levels of biodiversity -- the enormous variety of life on Earth and the species, traits and evolutionary history they represent -- appear to reduce extinction risk in birds. View the full article
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New research uncovers the negative link between flight-worthiness and fight-worthiness in birds. Evolutionary pressure demanded that birds could either fly or arm themselves -- but not both. Furthermore, the new research suggests that developing wings and not bony spurs involved both sexual and natural selection. This insight helps us better understand how the enormous diversity of life and earth came to be. View the full article
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Scientists studied the differences in activity of immune genes between male and female Kentish Plovers and found that the immune genes of males were more active. This is evidence that males live longer than females due to differences in their immune systems. View the full article
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Two new species of fossil birds that lived alongside the dinosaurs have ben discovered near the Great Wall of China. One of the new species had a sensitive, movable bony appendage at the tip of its lower jaw that it might have used to find food. View the full article
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A first-of-its-kind, eight-year study has found widespread and frequent lead poisoning in North American bald and golden eagles impacting both species' populations. Researchers evaluated lead exposure in bald and golden eagles from 2010 to 2018. View the full article
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Many North American migratory birds are shrinking in size as temperatures have warmed over the past 40 years. But those with very big brains, relative to their body size, did not shrink as much as smaller-brained birds, according to new research. The study is the first to identify a direct link between cognition and animal response to human-made climate change. View the full article
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With a surface larger than all the continents together, the Pacific Ocean is the most extreme environment a migratory bird can encounter. Yet there are several bird species that conquer this enormous body of water almost routinely. Migratory bird researchers now provide a synthesis of all the knowns, and especially the many unknowns about the extreme performances of migratory birds such as bar-tailed godwits, whimbrels and red knots, which fly over the Pacific Ocean. View the full article
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Using GPS tags attached to the birds, researchers discovered some surprising facts about the long migrations that eastern whip-poor-wills make from their Midwest breeding grounds to where they winter in Mexico and Central America. View the full article
