Great tits cope well with warming

Great tits cope well with warming

news.bbc.co.uk

Researchers found that great tits are laying eggs earlier in the spring than they used to, keeping step with the earlier emergence of caterpillars.
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Their movement to an earlier breeding time does not involve an evolutionary change, the scientists believe - it is simply that individual birds are able to change their behaviour, in the same way that they have presumably adapted to warmer or cooler phases before the era of human-induced global warming.

(visit the link for the full news article)

Ok... apart from the COMPLETELY misleading, and yet completely true title the article gave this...

*giggles*

Alright, enough. I am actually seriously interested in the question the article brings up. It says that the birds are adapting to the change and breeding earlier.

I want to ask this question:

If the weather is warmer earlier, the caterpillars are also bred earlier and hence, the birds earlier, is this REALLY adaptation or just our stubbornness to change the calendar?

news.bbc.co.uk
(visit the link for the full news article)

Aside from the initial sophormic laugh, there will be species positively affected by global warming but overall I believe the affects on most will be negative.

But, their breeding cycles may change from one year to the next, dependent upon the availability of food sources, not just temperature.

Man made global warming one year and man made global cooling the next. The Tits don't care as much as the politicians

Originally posted by Britguy
But, their breeding cycles may change from one year to the next, dependent upon the availability of food sources, not just temperature.

Their breeding cycles may change due to food, however, it appears in this case that the 'food' is the species that may changing the most due to temperature and not necessarily the birds.

reply to post by SilentShadow


Only problem is that the national average temperature for April is down this year making it the 19th coolest April in the last 100 years. Or at least that is what I heard on the radio this AM. Wasn't able to confirm it on Google. So you might watch for confirmation. Not that the liberal media would want to repeat something that would contradict their GW agenda!

What we want to do is to try and understand why some species are flexible and others aren't - it's the ones that aren't flexible that are going to be at risk.

Hope what they find will be of some help to others not so lucky

And, yes, Silent, I did look at this thread to find out why I was going to cope well with warming

[edit on 9-5-2008 by desert]

Hehehehe…. He said tits. Heheheheh

Seriously though, aren’t all tits great? And what are the smaller tits called, tits of a lesser god? Oh I know, mosquito bite tits. Good to see that the puerile is still allowed around here.

I'm sorry but with a topic like this one, well I'm just disappointed.

Nothing to see here guys, carry on.

Roper

reply to post by SilentShadow


I can imagine the sheer joy that followed you finding this article. I love your dedication to great tits.
I have nothing to add to this, except I've spent a month putting together a thread about how leopards really don't change their spots. Really. And don't steal that from me, got a lot to go with it.

I hereby insist - THERE MUST BE A SPECIAL FLAG FOR THIS KIND OF HUMOR!!!

S&F'd. Good one, REALLY!

Besides its even interesting about the birds ability to adapt on such relatively short evolutionary notice.

Well I know that the great tits were not like they are now, that's for sure. I only saw one or two great tits when I was young but know I see great tits every where and at an earlier time. Now here's a picture of some great tits.




[edit on 5/9/2008 by Solarskye]

Starred and flagged as well. I love great tits.

My problem is I read in todays paper that a group of scientists in Australia are yelling that the world is not getting warmer, it's actually getting colder.

How will the great tits do when the weather is chilly? Will they stand up and soldier on?

The world would be a much poorer place if there were not great tits to catch the eye and warm the cockles of our hearts.

Regardless of whether it's getting warmer or colder, I just hope they are around for all time.

Mankind may have it's ups and downs, but may great tits go on forever.

Love and light my friends,

Well it's nice to know the tits will survive. What I really want to know is how the blue and red footed boobies will fair as the climate changes.