Climate change is preventing birds from reproducing. Scientists have already found out that changes in natural and climatic conditions have a negative impact on the population of seabirds. Accelerating trends in climate change on the planet are confirmed by new patterns in the behavior of animals and birds of Western Taimyr. New studies show that increasing tropical storms threaten seabirds. Southern birds and spiders get to the Arctic through “corridors” that have appeared due to the melting of permafrost.
Southern birds and spiders get to the Arctic through “corridors” that appeared due to melting permafrost. The behavior of such a species as the heron in Yakutia confirms the “petal thawing” hypothesis, said scientific secretary and chief of staff of the expedition Oksana Tolstykh. The expedition of the Russian Academy of Sciences “Clean Arctic – Vostok-77” found out that southern species of spiders and birds penetrate to the Arctic Circle through narrow corridors-petals that appeared due to melting permafrost, the press service of the expedition reported in April 2024.
“The behavior of such a species as the heron in Yakutia confirms the hypothesis of “petal warming”. The heron has penetrated far to the North, but its range looks like two narrow stripes. It is probably possible to identify the clear boundaries of these “petals” narrowing to the north,” said the scientific secretary, chief of staff of the expedition Oksana Tolstykh.
During the expedition, a large volume of data on climate change over the past twenty years was collected in various northern regions and local residents were interviewed. The unevenness of the appearance of spiders and birds at the same latitude showed that the northern boundary of their habitats has not shifted along its entire length, but has formed several protrusions in the northern direction in the form of petals.
The hypothesis of “petal thawing” was also confirmed, that is, the melting of permafrost is observed precisely in these petal zones, 50 to 200 kilometers wide at the southern base. According to the observations of the expedition participants, animals move north along these rather narrow corridors-petals. And this movement is not due to natural barriers – water bodies or mountain ranges.
“As our research teams’ observations show, the changes are not the same if we consider them in terms of geographic latitude. The first conclusion that can be drawn from these observations is that permafrost can change at different rates at the same latitude. And buildings standing on permafrost just a hundred kilometers from each other can experience completely different loads – one will collapse, while another will stand for another two hundred years,” Tolstykh added.
“Clean Arctic – East-77” is the largest in terms of the number of participants among continental high-latitude scientific expeditions in the entire history of Northern research. In total, it will include 77 parties, about 700 participants per year from more than 20 centers of the Russian Academy of Sciences and federal universities, as well as volunteers of the Russian Geographical Society. They will conduct over 200 studies on routes with a length of 12 thousand kilometers. One of the objectives of the expedition will be the study and preservation of rare northern languages. TASS is the general information partner of the expedition.
New research shows that stronger tropical storms are threatening seabirds. Thousands of birds on an Australian island died where they were perched when Tropical Cyclone Ilsa struck in 2023, many of them buried alive under sand and mud, Inside Climate News reports.
Scientists have said that more intense and frequent tropical cyclones and hurricanes pose a greater threat to some seabird populations than previously thought. They have published new research showing how a 2023 tropical cyclone wiped out between 80 and 90 per cent of populations of three bird species on Bedout Island off the Pilbara coast of Western Australia.
“Numerous studies have shown that seabirds have advance warning of severe storms, allowing them to fly away from the storm or into its calm center, but the new findings show they are not invincible,” said Jennifer Lavers, lead author of the new paper published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment.
When Cyclone Ilsa hit Bedout Island last year, strengthening from a Category 1 to a Category 5 in less than two days, its 136mph sustained winds were the strongest ever recorded in Australia.
When scientists surveyed the island, they found complete devastation. Almost every bird on the island had died where it had perched, and in many cases, chicks and eggs were buried under sediment and sand.
A helicopter survey less than a week after Cyclone Ilsa hit Bedout Island revealed hundreds of dead seabirds, mostly gannets, scattered across the island’s surface. Fortescue Helicopters
In addition to stronger tropical storms, global warming has also caused extreme marine heat waves and toxic algae blooms, suggesting that the oceans are facing mass mortality on a scale not seen for millions of years.
Seabirds have evolved to cope with disturbances like cyclones, and healthy species can recover from mass die-offs. But the mortality rate is very high, said Ryan Huang, who was not involved in the new study but studies tropical conservation ecology at the University of Pretoria and co-authored a 2017 paper on how hurricanes affect migrating seabirds.
When 90 percent of a local population dies, “it becomes vulnerable to random events such as sex imbalance, disease, or even other disturbances,” he said. “Sometimes it only takes a couple of bad years in a row for a local population to go extinct. The authors are right to highlight concerns about how quickly these birds will recover.”
Two oily boobies that died on a beach on Bedout Island are seen in July 2023, three months after Cyclone Ilsa. Andrew Fidler/Adrift Lab
“Pulse disturbances” such as cyclones, droughts and fires can significantly affect population numbers, especially when species are at a vulnerable part of their life cycle, such as during breeding or migration. In a natural system, species can survive local extinction events such as these as long as that habitat can be recolonised from elsewhere.
“Unfortunately, if all the other populations are also suffering from the effects of climate change, or if human intervention is making it difficult for them to disperse, then you have a real problem… In our work, we found that hurricanes in the Caribbean were the leading cause of sooty tern mortality during migration,” said Ryan Huang. Hurricane Allen, a Category 5 in 1980, hit at the peak of migration and may have killed up to half the population.
The effects of hurricanes and other tropical weather systems in the Caribbean may not even have been documented, said Natalia Collier, a seabird ecologist with EPIC, a nonprofit environmental group in the region who was not involved in the new study.
The powerful Category 5 Hurricane Irma in 2017 may have wiped out a colony of brown pelicans on St. Maarten. Seabirds, she said, “of course face numerous threats, including development, disturbance and disease, but these are exacerbated by the effects of climate change, which could also result in low-lying colonies being inundated as sea levels rise.”
Accelerating trends in climate change on the planet are confirmed by new patterns in the behavior of animals and birds of Western Taimyr, which were recorded by scientists of the Yenisei Siberia Scientific and Educational Center, the project office of the Yenisei Siberia Scientific and Educational Center reported. In migratory animals, the mechanisms for moving to another territory depending on the season are genetically embedded. Therefore, the timing of migration, the ranges of different species may not change for centuries, explained specialists of the Yenisei Siberia Scientific and Educational Center (REC).
According to experts, the complication of bird migration routes may pose a risk of introducing zoonotic (common to animals and humans) infections, including various strains of bird flu.
Birds of Taimyr. SFU/Alexander and Petr Savchenko
“The melting of the Arctic Ocean ice, which has accelerated significantly in recent decades, poses serious dangers to humanity. In particular, more and more infectious diseases can be transmitted from migrating animals to people. Russia and Yenisei Siberia are a giant “transport hub” for migratory birds, so regular comprehensive studies should be conducted to promptly identify the introduction of various pathogens into our territory,” added Mikhail Bondar, Deputy Director of the Federal State Budgetary Institution “Taimyr Nature Reserves.”
Birds of Taimyr. SFU/Alexander and Petr Savchenko
The activities of the REC, created on the basis of the Siberian Federal University on the initiative of the Krasnoyarsk Territory, Khakassia and Tuva, are aimed at improving the environmental situation in the region and decarbonizing the industry of Russia. The REC includes nine universities, five research institutes and 14 industrial enterprises. The scientific and educational centers are created within the framework of the national project “Science and Universities” of the Ministry of Education and Science of Russia.
Climate change is preventing birds from reproducing. Scientists have already found out that changes in natural and climatic conditions have a negative impact on the population of seabirds. Today, another study shows that global warming observed in Antarctica is also preventing birds from reproducing, reports the journal Current Biology, the publication InScience.News.
Antarctic birds love the early part of the year: in winter, they build nests and lay eggs, for example, on the Svarthamaren and Jutulsessen mountains in Antarctica. These two peaks are home to the two largest colonies of Antarctic petrels in the world and are important nesting sites for snow petrels and south polar skuas. From 1985 to 2020, the colony on the slopes of Svarthamaren annually counted up to 200,000 nests of Antarctic petrels, about 2,000 nests of snow petrels and more than 100 nests of skuas.
However, the situation has changed. From December 2021 to January 2022, not a single South Polar Skua nest appeared on the summit. There were only three Antarctic Petrel nests. There were slightly more Snow Petrel nests. The situation on Jutulsessen was no better – not a single Antarctic Petrel nest (although there used to be tens of thousands).
The problem is that all these birds lay their eggs on bare rock. If it is covered with snow, then laying eggs and hatching chicks becomes impossible. Previously, the conditions around the named mountains were quite satisfactory for the birds. Now, global warming has greatly changed the weather in the area. According to scientists, snowfalls at the nesting sites have become much heavier. Because of this, the birds were unable to nest in 2021-2022 – the rocks were too covered with snow. In addition, in snowy frosty weather, energy costs increase in order not to freeze.
The Norwegian Polar Institute praises its research, which convincingly shows that extreme weather events as a consequence of the climate crisis are having a strong impact on seabird populations, and long-term forecast models predict that the severity of these events will increase.
