A 15-year study led by University of Windsor researchers shows that a hot climate reduces survival in tropical birds. The new study, which appears today in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, asks the question: How do temperatures and rainfall influence survival of male and female tropical songbirds?
“Most of Earth’s birds, and most of Earth’s biodiversity, are concentrated in the tropics,” says Dan Mennill, a professor in the Department of Biological Sciences and the senior author of the study. “But studies of how climate influences animal survival have focused primarily on migratory birds or birds that live in temperate environments.”
The research team, made up of biologists from both University of Windsor and University of Guelph, studied a population of rufous-and-white wrens living in the Guanacaste Conservation Area in Costa Rica. Each year, for a decade-and-a-half, team members captured birds in mist nets, gave each animal a distinctive combination of coloured leg bands, and then surveyed the population to see which birds were still alive and which had perished.
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Image via University of Windsor.