Researchers have shown how millions of years of climate change affected the range and habitat of modern birds, suggesting that many groups of tropical birds may be relatively recent arrivals in their equatorial homes.
Researchers have shown how millions of years of climate change affected the range and habitat of modern birds, suggesting that many groups of tropical birds may be relatively recent arrivals in their equatorial homes.
The researchers, from the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford, applied climate and ecological modelling to illustrate how the distribution of major bird groups is linked to climate change over millions of years. However, while past climate change often occurred slowly enough to allow species to adapt or shift habitats, current rates of climate change may be too fast for many species, putting them at risk of extinction. The results are reported in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
“Palaeontologists have documented long-term links between climate and the geographic distributions of major bird groups, but the computer models needed to quantify this link had not been applied to this question until now,” said Dr Daniel Field from Cambridge’s Department of Earth Sciences, the paper’s co-lead author.
Read more at University of Cambridge
