(Press-News.org) ITHACA, N.Y. – Because of warmer winters, Florida scrub-jays are now nesting one week earlier than they did in 1981. But these early birds are not always getting the worm.
A new analysis of data from a long-term study, published in Ornithological Advances, finds that warmer winters driven by climate change reduced the number of offspring raised annually by the federally threatened Florida scrub-jay by 25% since 1981.
Warmer temperatures, the scientists hypothesize, make jay nests susceptible to predation by snakes for a longer period of the Florida spring than in the past.
Researchers from Archbold Biological Station and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology examined 37 years of data to assess the impacts of warming on reproductive effort. From 1981 to 2018, the average winter temperature at Archbold Biological Station increased by 2.5 degrees Fahrenheit.
“There is significantly more snake activity in warmer weather,” said Sahas Barve, lead author and director of avian ecology at Archbold, “and snakes are the primary nest predator.”
These losses are compounded by additional stresses. In an effort to produce young each season, Florida scrub-jays will keep building nests and laying more eggs after nests are lost to predators – “until they finally give up,” said John Fitzpatrick, director emeritus of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.
“Despite increases in the number of nests built and eggs laid over the longer breeding season, Florida scrub-jays are not producing more young,” said Fitzpatrick, co-author of the paper. “In the bird world, there is a well-known trade-off between the number of breeding attempts and longevity. The more breeding effort expended each year, the less likely the bird is to be alive five or 10 years later.”
“The idea that over the long-term jays are experiencing an average reduction in reproductive success along with reduction in longevity is alarming,” Fitzpatrick said.
The findings suggest that climate change could dampen the success of conservation efforts for this threatened species.
“Even in permanently protected areas like Archbold, jay populations face ever-worsening odds of persistence,” Barve said. “We’ve spent decades managing habitat for the Florida scrub-jay, but there is one thing we can’t control and that is climate. What might be a healthy and stable population of jays now might not be in the next 10 to 20 years despite nothing changing on the ground.”
This study was funded by Archbold Biological Station, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the National Science Foundation.
For additional information, read this Cornell Chronicle story.
Cornell University has dedicated television and audio studios available for media interviews.
-30-
END
How climate change threatens this iconic Florida bird
2024-11-25
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
Study reveals new factor involved in controlling calorie expenditure
2024-11-25
An international team of researchers has discovered a new component of the peripheral nervous system that acts by increasing energy metabolism in the body. The finding paves the way for the development of simpler and cheaper drugs to control obesity and weight gain, regardless of the amount of food ingested.
In an article published in the journal Nature, researchers from the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom and the Obesity and Comorbidities Research Center (OCRC) – funded by FAPESP and based at the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP) in Brazil – describe where and how this component ...
Managing forests with smart technologies
2024-11-25
Deforestation has remained a significant issue globally, with primary forests contributing to 16 per cent of the total tree cover loss in the last two decades, driven by climate change and intensive human activity. This threatens natural resources, biodiversity, and people’s quality of life. To protect forests, Lithuanian scientists, in collaboration with Swedish experts, have developed Forest 4.0, an intelligent forest data processing model integrating blockchain, Internet of Things (IoT), and Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies. The system ...
Clinical trial finds that adding the chemotherapy pill temozolomide to radiation therapy improves survival in adult patients with a slow-growing type of brain tumor
2024-11-25
Both radiation and temozolomide, a generic chemotherapy treatment in pill form, have meaningful single-modality anti-tumor activity against slow-growing, low-grade gliomas. The randomized phase 3 trial E3F05 by the ECOG-ACRIN Cancer Research Group (ECOG-ACRIN) tested whether combined therapy using temozolomide alongside radiation therapy is more effective than radiation therapy alone in these patients. The trial followed 172 patients for more than 10 years, and its results have an immediate clinical impact by providing the first evidence from a randomized phase 3 trial that temozolomide improves long-term survival for these patients.
“We found that the 10-year ...
H.E.S.S. collaboration detects the most energetic cosmic-ray electrons and positrons ever observed
2024-11-25
The Universe teems with extreme environments, ranging from the very coldest temperatures to the highest energy sources possible. As a consequence, extreme objects such as supernova remnants, pulsars and active galactic nuclei are capable of emitting charged particles and gamma rays with incredibly high energies, so high that they exceed the energy produced by the nuclear fusion in stars by several orders of magnitude.
The gamma rays detected on Earth tell us a great deal about these sources, since they travel through space undisturbed. However, in the case of charged particles, ...
Novel supernova observations grant astronomers a peek into the cosmic past
2024-11-25
COLUMBUS, Ohio – An international team of researchers has made new observations of an unusual supernova, finding the most metal-poor stellar explosion ever observed.
This rare supernova, called 2023ufx, originated from the core collapse of a red supergiant star, exploded on the outskirts of a nearby dwarf galaxy. Results of the study showed that observations of both this supernova and the galaxy it was discovered in are of low metallicity, meaning they lack an abundance of elements heavier than hydrogen or helium.
Since the metals produced within supernovae ...
Association of severe maternal morbidity with subsequent birth
2024-11-25
About The Study: The findings of this study suggest that women who experience severe maternal morbidity in their first birth are less likely to have a subsequent birth. Adequate reproductive counseling and enhancing antenatal care are crucial for women with a history of severe maternal morbidity.
Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Eleni Tsamantioti, MD, MMedSc, email eleni.tsamantioti@ki.se.
To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/
(doi:10.1001/jama.2024.20957)
Editor’s ...
Herodotus' theory on Armenian origins debunked by first whole-genome study
2024-11-25
Armenians, a population in Western Asia historically inhabiting the Armenian highlands, were long believed to be descendants of Phrygian settlers from the Balkans. This theory originated largely from the accounts of the Greek historian Herodotus, who observed that Armenians were armed in Phrygian fashion when serving in the Persian army. Linguists further supported this theory, suggesting that the Armenian language shares ties with the Thraco-Phrygian subgroup of Indo-European languages.
But the first whole-genome study is challenging this long-held belief, revealing no significant genetic link between ...
Women who suffer pregnancy complications have fewer children
2024-11-25
Women who suffer severe complications during their first pregnancy or delivery are less inclined to have more babies, a study published in JAMA by researchers at Karolinska Institutet reports. Given the recent steady decline in birth rate in Sweden, the researchers propose monitoring in antenatal care to address the problem.
“The clinical monitoring of these women is essential, and they need individualised advice on possible future pregnancies,” says the study’s first author Eleni Tsamantioti, doctoral student at the Department of Medicine in Solna, Karolinska Institutet.
Birth rates and fertility have both been in steady decline ...
Home testing kits and coordinated outreach substantially improve colorectal cancer screening rates
2024-11-25
CHAPEL HILL, North Carolina—Colorectal cancer screening is an effective tool for catching the disease early when it's most treatable, yet it is underutilized in patient populations who receive primary care at federally qualified health centers (FQHC).
A new study by researchers at UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center demonstrated that a targeted intervention can substantially increase screening rates in patients who are not current with recommended screening. The researchers report in JAMA Network Open that mailing at-home ...
COVID-19 vaccine reactogenicity among young children
2024-11-25
About The Study: No unexpected reactions were identified in this analysis of reactions to COVID-19 vaccines among children. Similar to this study, data from clinical trials and V-safe found that irritability was the most common systemic reaction among children ages 6 months to younger than 2 years, followed by fever and fatigue or sleepiness. In contrast to other studies observing a higher prevalence of reactions after the second COVID-19 vaccine dose, this study observed a higher prevalence after the first dose. This difference may reflect maternal vaccination; the ...