Urban environment
Birds adapted to city living are still at risk
March 1, 2024
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A recent study shows that even birds that are equipped to cope with human-altered environments, such as blue jays, European starlings, and robins, are not protected from ongoing population declines being seen across North America.
A recent study by Queen카지노 게임 컬렉션s 카지노게임사이트 researchers reveals that even common city-dwelling birds, which are equipped to cope with human-altered environments, are not protected from ongoing population declines being seen across North America.
Avian population declines in North America have resulted in a loss of an estimated 3 billion individual birds since the 1970s, reflecting the current global biodiversity crisis. While even seemingly abundant species have suffered declines, the factors that influence each species카지노 게임 컬렉션 vulnerability to decline are not well understood.
The findings of the study, conducted by then-undergraduate student Julianna Petrenko (now a master카지노 게임 컬렉션s student at Queen카지노 게임 컬렉션s Biology), with supervision from Fran Bonier (Associate Professor, Queen카지노 게임 컬렉션s Biology), along with collaborators Rachel Fanelli (former master카지노 게임 컬렉션s student, Queen카지노 게임 컬렉션s Biology), and Paul Martin (Associate Professor, Queen카지노 게임 컬렉션s Biology), were recently highlighted in an article published in , a journal of the Royal Society.
It concludes that although the factors that influence a species카지노 게임 컬렉션 vulnerability are not well known, how well a species tolerates urban environments is not one of them.
The result wasn카지노 게임 컬렉션t what the team was expecting.
카지노 게임 컬렉션We know we're losing a lot of birds and though our study did set out to explain some of the variation in the trajectories we didn't find a reason why some species are more vulnerable than others,카지노 게임 컬렉션 explains Petrenko, the lead author of the article and a member of The Bonier Lab. 카지노 게임 컬렉션Coming in, we expected species that thrive in cities, and are generally better suited to many different conditions, would be doing better, but our results show that they aren't guaranteed protection. They were just as likely to be increasing or stable or declining as birds that completely avoid cities, which is surprising.카지노 게임 컬렉션
This is what카지노 게임 컬렉션s known as a negative finding, but it was equally as important in providing guidance for future studies.
카지노 게임 컬렉션It was such a surprising result, and it's one of the rare cases where a completely negative result 카지노 게임 컬렉션 like, absolutely no relationship 카지노 게임 컬렉션 is still super important,카지노 게임 컬렉션 Dr. Bonier says. 카지노 게임 컬렉션That's unusual in science in general, where a finding of absolutely no relationship is quite important and publishable. This finding tells us that no, just because you see a lot of birds in the city, it doesn카지노 게임 컬렉션t mean their populations are doing well.카지노 게임 컬렉션
Massive amounts of data
The study looked at 397 North American bird species with data gathered from 1993 to 2019. It is the first to test for an association between a bird species카지노 게임 컬렉션 ability to cope with urban environments and overall population trends.
With such a massive amount of data, maintaining the highest level of organization throughout the process was paramount. Inspecting metadata, making sure there are not duplications or misplacements, and then checking again and again. It meant countless hours of work for the team to ensure that everything was accurate. The rigour was extremely high but as Dr. Bonier explains, 카지노 게임 컬렉션a study카지노 게임 컬렉션s only as good as the quality of the data.카지노 게임 컬렉션
Pandemic shift
Petrenko카지노 게임 컬렉션s line of research for her undergraduate honours thesis was influenced by the pandemic. Fieldwork is an important form of information gathering for biologists but as the pandemic took hold, and lockdowns required people to stay home, the members of the Bonier Lab had to alter course.
카지노 게임 컬렉션Due to the pandemic we shifted to a lot of these sorts of projects, that I always appreciated were powerful, these big comparative studies using huge amounts of public data. This shift created a new focus in my lab, where we카지노 게임 컬렉션re tapping into the power of these data projects to answer broad, important questions,카지노 게임 컬렉션 says Dr. Bonier.