Shrinking shorebird pays the bill for rapid Arctic warming while wintering in the tropics
Red knots migrate between their breeding grounds in the Arctic and their wintering grounds in West Africa. Chicks currently born under rapidly warming conditions attain smaller sizes before migration starts, because they miss the insect peak. If they reach their wintering grounds in the tropics, they are faced with a second disadvantage: their shorter bills cannot reach their favourite shellfish food. This results in an evolutionary force towards smaller-sized birds with large bills.
These findings will be published Friday 13 May 2016 in Science by an international team of researchers from the Netherlands (NIOZ and Univ. Groningen), Australia, France, Poland and Russia.
Source: Press Release NIOZ Royal Netherlands Istitute for Sea Research
Last modified: | 13 March 2020 02.09 a.m. |
More news
-
23 April 2024
Nine MSCA Doctoral Network grants for FSE researchers
Nine researchers of the Faculty of Science and Engineering have received a Horizon Europe Marie Sklodowska Curie Doctoral Network grant.
-
22 April 2024
Charissa Roossien secures JTF subsidy to develop Health Tracker
Dr. Charissa Roossien (ENTEG) has successfully secured a Just Transition Fund (JTF) subsidy of 1.8 million euros to develop a Health Tracker for reliable respiratory and metabolic analysis.
-
15 April 2024
Night vision with artificial atoms
Every two weeks, UG Makers puts the spotlight on a researcher who has created something tangible, ranging from homemade measuring equipment for academic research to small or larger products that can change our daily lives. That is how UG...