Birds
on top of the world, with nowhere to go
UNIVERSITY OF
QUEENSLAND
Climate change could make much of the Arctic unsuitable for
millions of migratory birds that travel north to breed each year, according to
a new international study published today in Global Change Biology.
The University of
Queensland School of Biological Sciences' researcher Hannah Wauchope said that
suitable breeding conditions for Arctic shorebirds could collapse by 2070.
"This means that
countries throughout the world will have fewer migratory birds reaching their
shores," Ms Wauchope said.
Arctic breeding shorebirds
undertake some of the longest known migratory journeys in the animal kingdom,
with many travelling more than 20,000 kilometres per year to escape the
northern winter.
The bar-tailed godwit flies from Alaska to New Zealand in a single flight of 12,000 kilometres without landing.
The study predicts that,
in a warming world, migratory birds will become increasingly restricted to
small islands in the Arctic Ocean as they retreat north.
This could cause declines
in hard-hit regions and some birds could even completely change migratory
pathways to migrate closer to suitable habitat.
"Climate change is
also opening up the Arctic to threats such as mining and tourism, and we must
make sure we protect key places for all Arctic species, including these amazing
migratory birds," Ms Wauchope said.
UQ's Associate Professor
Richard Fuller from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Environmental Decisions
(CEED) said most migratory populations followed well-defined migratory routes.
"This makes
shorebirds an excellent group to investigate how climate change might impact
breeding grounds and conservation actions that could address these
impacts," Associate Professor Fuller said.
The research modelled the
suitable climate breeding conditions of 24 Arctic shorebirds and projected them
to 2070.
The researchers also
examined the impact on Arctic birds of the world's last major warming event
about 6000 to 8000 years ago.
"Climatically
suitable breeding conditions could shift and contract over the next 70 years,
with up to 83 per cent of Arctic bird species losing most of their currently
suitable area," Ms Wauchope said.
"This far exceeds the
effects of the last major warming event on Earth, but genetic evidence suggests
that even then the birds struggled to deal with the warming."
She said that suitable
climatic conditions are predicted to decline fastest in the areas with most
species (western Alaska and eastern Russia), where Arctic birds are already
becoming vulnerable to the "shrubification" of the tundra, and
predators such as red foxes moving north.
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The study, Rapid
climate-driven loss of breeding habitat for Arctic migratory birds, was also
co-authored by colleagues at the Australian Antarctic Division, Tasmania;
University Centre in Svalbard, Norway; Akvaplan-niva, Norway; Russian Academy
of Sciences in Moscow; Aarhus University, Denmark; and the US Fish and Wildlife
Service in Alaska, US. It was funded by an ARC Linkage
project grant and CEED.