{"id":112379,"date":"2018-01-11T15:51:13","date_gmt":"2018-01-11T20:51:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/?p=112379"},"modified":"2018-01-12T13:30:15","modified_gmt":"2018-01-12T18:30:15","slug":"climate-change-is-behind-storm-petrels-breeding-decline","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/2018\/01\/11\/climate-change-is-behind-storm-petrels-breeding-decline\/","title":{"rendered":"Climate change is behind storm-petrels’ breeding decline"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the deep cold of a Maine winter, the reality of our warming climate feels counterintuitive. But as scientists remind us, climate change is best understood over the long term.<\/p>\n

In fact, an imperiled ocean bird off the Maine coast is trying to tell us the same thing. Since 1988, a population of Leach\u2019s storm-petrels in the Bay of Fundy has been breeding less and less successfully, and our warming climate is the culprit, according to new research by Bates Professor of Biology Don Dearborn and colleagues.<\/p>\n

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New research suggests a link between the decline of Leach’s storm-petrels and a warming climate. (Don Dearborn)<\/p><\/div>\n

The findings by Dearborn, Professor of Biology Robert Mauck of Kenyon College, and the late Professor Emeritus of Biology Charles Huntington of Bowdoin College were published in Global Change Biology<\/em><\/a> in December.<\/p>\n

The researchers discovered that one specific climate variable, global mean temperature<\/a>, is the \u201csingle most important predictor of the storm-petrels\u2019 hatching success.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOur analysis points out both whether any<\/em> climate variable is involved\u201d in the birds\u2019 breeding decline \u2014 the answer is a definitive yes \u2014 \u201cand also what<\/em> climate variable is the best predictor, and it’s global mean temperature,\u201d Dearborn says.<\/p>\n

Then came “the tipping point.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Since 1955, researchers on Kent Island, home of the Bowdoin Scientific Station, have recorded all sorts of data about the local storm-petrels, including the birds\u2019 success at breeding, determined by checking if there\u2019s a chick in a nest where previously there had been an incubating egg.<\/p>\n

Reviewing data from 1955 to 2010, the researchers saw that the petrels\u2019 hatching success initially improved with the rise in global mean temperature. Then came \u201cthe tipping point,\u201d when success stopped improving. \u201cThat year was 1988,\u201d they report. Since then, hatching success has declined as temperatures have continued to increase.<\/p>\n

A warming climate affects species in myriad ways, and it\u2019s believed that \u201cchanges in food availability and food quality, paralleled by marked changes in fisheries\u201d are causing the birds\u2019 decline on Kent Island.<\/p>\n\t\n\t

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Jacob Freedman \u201818 of Chestnut Hill, Mass., checks a Leach\u2019s storm-petrel breeding burrow for occupancy during fieldwork on Kent Island last Short Term, part of Professor of Biology Don Dearborn\u2019s avian biology course. (Don Dearborn)\n<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t

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Bates students in Professor of Biology Don Dearborn\u2019s avian biology Short Term course head out to do fieldwork on Kent Island in May 2017. (Don Dearborn).\n<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t

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A researcher takes a blood sample from a Leach\u2019s storm-petrel on Kent Island in July 2016. (Don Dearborn)<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t

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A breeding burrow of a Leach's storm-petrel on Kent Island in the Bay of Fundy. (Don Dearborn)<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t

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Quite a few climate variables touch Leach\u2019s storm-petrels, birds that travel great distances within and between breeding seasons. \u201cThese birds are in very different places at different times of the year, and even on different days,\u201d Dearborn says. Many variables mean there have been a variety of \u201creasonable biological hypotheses\u201d to explain what\u2019s happening to the birds.<\/p>\n

Besides the rise in global temperature, there are regional temperature changes. There\u2019s the rise in sea surface temperatures, both in the North Atlantic where the birds find food in the summer, and near the equator where they spend the winter. There\u2019s the temperature in the birds\u2019 own burrows, where they incubate eggs.<\/p>\n

By building statistical models with different combinations of known climate variables, the researchers found that the global mean temperature, though \u201ca single, broad-brush metric,\u201d nevertheless provides the most useful index to capture \u201cthe complexity faced by these seabirds over a half-century of climate change.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em>“It is the great integrator.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

With global temperatures unlikely to return to their pre-1988 levels, the researchers warn that \u201cthe future is not bright for this marine vertebrate breeding in the Bay of Fundy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Beyond the fate of the storm-petrels, the study underscores the need to think about climate change as a global phenomenon, \u201ceven as the local climate changes differently in different places,\u201d Dearborn explains.<\/p>\n

Accordingly, \u201cglobal mean temperature should be a useful predictor for other natural populations around the world, particularly for other species that travel across large spatial scales, as storm-petrels do,\u201d Dearborn says.<\/p>\n

As the researchers say in their paper, \u201cGlobal temperature is an index of an entire planet\u2019s worth of interactions. It is the great integrator.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the deep cold of a Maine winter, the reality of our…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":104,"featured_media":112441,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_hide_ai_chatbot":false,"_ai_chatbot_style":"","associated_faculty":[],"_Page_Specific_Css":"","_bates_restrict_mod":false,"_table_of_contents_display":false,"_table_of_contents_location":"","_table_of_contents_disableSticky":false,"_is_featured":false,"footnotes":"","_bates_seo_meta_description":"","_bates_seo_block_robots":false,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_id":0,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_twitter_id":0,"_bates_seo_share_title":"","_bates_seo_canonical_overwrite":"","_bates_seo_twitter_template":""},"categories":[4,32,217],"tags":[10838,2995],"class_list":["post-112379","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academic-life","category-maine-and-new-england","category-science-technology","tag-climate-change","tag-donald-dearborn"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112379","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/104"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112379"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112379\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":112434,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112379\/revisions\/112434"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/112441"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}