Chennai: Simply shifting lifecycle stages to match the tempo of climate change has hidden dangers for some animals, a new research has said.
According to the research from the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behaviour and Cornell University, the timing of when to breed and when food is available is becoming decoupled for some animals, especially birds.
The study, published in PNAS, has uncovered drastic consequences for birds that are breeding earlier in lockstep with earlier starts of spring: chicks hatching earlier face increased risk of poor weather conditions, food shortages and mortality.
The team studied a population of Tree Swallows in Ithaca, New York, that have been the focus of a remarkable 30-year experiment—studies of this length are rare in the field of ornithology. This allowed them to analyse a series of long-term data of Tree Swallow reproduction (over 30 years) daily insect abundance (over 25 years) and weather (over 100 years).
Maren Vitousek, a professor at Cornell University, which operates the Tree Swallow’s long-term research facility in Ithaca, “Long-term studies like these are essential to understand how and why species are affected by climate change. They can also provide valuable insights into how organisms function, interact and evolve in complex ecological networks.”
According to Ryan Shipley, postdoctoral fellow at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior and first author on the paper, “Simply moving dates earlier to track climate change isn’t necessarily risk free. Riskier conditions earlier in the year can expose animals to unintended consequences when responding to bouts of unusually warm spring weather.”