What is it about?
Lots of animal populations are shifting through space due to climate change, tracking their temperature niche. But we don’t have a good understanding of whether this happens because individuals at the leading edge of the range survive and reproduce better while those at the trailing edge die off (natural selection) or because individuals themselves move in response to rising temperatures. We’ve used repeated tracking of the Critically Endangered Balearic shearwater to show that these long-lived seabirds flexibly change their migrations in response to climate change.
Featured Image
Photo by Rodolfo Mari on Unsplash
Why is it important?
Climate change is a threat to many of the world’s animals. One way it affects them is through population range shifts. But whether these shifts happen through natural selection or individual flexibility will determine how fast animals can respond and the impacts it has on population numbers. Our research suggests this Critically Endangered seabird may be able to adapt its migration to climate change within a single bird’s lifetime. However, there may be negative knock on effects, such as delays to arrival at the breeding grounds and increased travel distances.
Perspectives
This was the first time I’ve led a study and it’s been inspiring to see the passion my co-authors have for this Critically Endangered species. As someone who studies animal behaviour, it was exciting to see how looking at individual animals’ behaviours can shed light on how they’ll be affected by global climate change.
Patrick Lewin
University of Oxford
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Climate change drives migratory range shift via individual plasticity in shearwaters, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, January 2024, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2312438121.
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