Climate change: bird communities would be in danger by 2080

The consequences of climate change are having an increasing impact on nature. The increase in global temperature, for example, is causing heat waves to become increasingly intense and prolonged. And, of course, animal species have not been spared from this phenomenon either.

A recent study, published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, analyzed the impacts that this phenomenon will have on bird communities by 2080. To make the projections, the team of scientists from the University of Durham, United Kingdom, and the Senckenberg Climate and Biodiversity Research Center, Germany, related past bird distributions to climate data.

With these data, the researchers applied the relationships in two future climate scenarios. One was based on low emissions and the other on medium greenhouse gas emissions, with the aim of predicting changes in species distributions.

An investigation showed that this phenomenon, in addition to affecting the number of species, will also have profound effects on phylogenetic diversity and community composition. The results were published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

In addition, the team looked at changes in the number of species in the areas and the types of species in which they would occur. And in order to summarize these kinds of changes, they did so by calculating phylogenetic diversity, which basically consists of calculating how many different types of birds would be produced.

“For example, a community that had many closely related species, such as insect-eating songbirds, would have a much lower phylogenetic diversity score than a community that included a mix of more distantly related species, such as birds of prey, partridges, or birds of prey. seagulls”, explains Durham University in a statement.

The researchers warn that climate change will affect the number of species and have profound effects on phylogenetic diversity and community composition. To reach this conclusion, the researchers analyzed data from 8,768 bird species around the world.

In the research they point out that they project that species losses are more common in tropical and subtropical areas, however, they warn, a phylogenetic restructuring of species communities is expected to occur throughout the world.

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