Slashdot Mirror


The Heat Is On: Climate Change Causes Birds To Hatch Early (australiangeographic.com.au)

grrlscientist writes: A recently published study reveals that climate change can cause birds' eggs to hatch early. In addition to creating warmer temperatures that trigger early embryonic development in birds, climate change also increases the frequency and duration of heat waves. Thus, warming temperatures are leading to asynchronous hatching of individual eggs within a clutch and increased chick mortality, particularly for birds breeding in the tropics and semi-tropics, and in tropical deserts.

6 of 123 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Development by techno-vampire · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Good question. TFA explains that a female zebra finch will lay one egg a day for five days, but she won't start incubating them until they're all laid. This means that all five will hatch at about the same time, making them easier to care for. If the weather's too hot, the first eggs laid start developing before she starts sitting on them, messing up the timing. And, if it gets hot enough in the nest, the embryos can be damaged or even killed.

    --
    Good, inexpensive web hosting
  2. Re:I agree that climate change has these effects by Your.Master · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This climate change is caused almost entirely by the sun and the oceans.

    But this isn't borne out by evidence. The sun has cooled very slightly, but the temperature has spiked up: https://www.skepticalscience.c...

    The oceans absorb and release carbon dioxide in direct proportion to atmospheric carbon dioxide. They essentially function to reduce the impact of atmospheric CO2 changes that would otherwise happen, in either direction. The ocean doesn't just burp out CO2 on a whim.

    Every reputable expert on geologic evidence I can find suggest that geologic evidence actually indicates that current climate change is overwhelmingly from human activity, and unusually rapid. There will of course be error bars and overall trendlines from natural sources as well, although it's not even clear that trendline runs in the same direction as current climate change.

  3. Re:Interesting findings; and related... by Your.Master · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Fine. You tell me why the birds are hatching early and then starving to death from a lack of insects, in historically unprecedented ways. Your theory should provide evidence of comparable quality to that in this paper: http://rsos.royalsocietypublis.... It will not be sufficient for you to say "a kid stomped on all the bugs" or something like that.

    It's not like they pulled this answer out of their asses. They presented actual evidence, whereas you are countering that by saying "well OF COURSE you'd say that, regardless of the evidence".

  4. Re:time to add a new one by d34thm0nk3y · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Imagine that, a change that effects the entire planet's atmosphere might cause a whole variety of changes across said planet. Its almost like if you change variables in a chaotic system you can get a wide range of surprising effects.

  5. Re:We're all gonna die!!!!!! by Falconhell · · Score: 2, Insightful

    SJW is a useful acronym for finding who is a Self-Righteous equality hating White redneck-free-speech Bigot, especially if it's in their signature.
    FTFY.

  6. Re:Birds adapt but humans can't! by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 3, Insightful

    So birds in their wisdom can adapt to climate change but the weeping willies say humans can't.

    Of course we can. Those adaptations might not be all that much fun for some of us though.

    --
    The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.