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Saturday, February 21, 2015

Climate change is implicated in poleward shifts in the distributions of species

"Climate change is expected to result in climatic zones moving poleward and an associated shift in the geographic ranges of bird species. Evidence for such shifts is now becoming apparent. It remains difficult to causally link such distributional shifts specifically to climate change as a wide range of additional factors also influence species distributions. However, thanks to recent research in Europe and North America, a remarkably consistent pattern is emerging that provides compelling evidence that climate change is responsible for significant northward shifts in the distribution of avian communities across the northern hemisphere."  See:
http://www.birdlife.org/datazone/sowb/casestudy/171

Read more at these links

Projected Impacts of Climate and Land-Use Change on the Global Diversity of Birds: http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.0050157#pbio-0050157-g003



Climate change is already documented as having impacted many bird species


And a related new paper -"Range-Wide Latitudinal and Elevational Temperature Gradients for the World's Terrestrial Birds: Implications under Global Climate Change" --- can be found at

: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0098361

 

Wednesday, February 18, 2015

posting about a topic we're not supposed to talk about...

In the interest of sharing information.... 

Study Finds Feral Cats Likely Driving Disease Among Deer
By The Wildlife Society Government Affairs
Posted on December 27, 2014
Free-roaming domestic cats (Felis catus) are widely understood to have substantial negative impacts on wildlife. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) lists cats among the world’s worst non-native invasive species, and cats on islands worldwide have contributed to 33 species extinctions (Lowe et al. 2000, Medina et al. 2011). In the United States free-roaming cats are the top source of direct anthropogenic mortality to birds and mammals, killing approximately 2.4 billion birds and 12.3 billion mammals each year (Loss et al. 2013).
The indirect impacts of cats on wildlife are less obvious, but one of the greatest emerging threats from free-roaming cats is infection with Toxoplasma gondii. T. gondii is a parasitic protozoan that can infect all warm-blooded species but relies on felids to complete its life cycle. According to a new study published in EcoHealth, feral cats are likely driving white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) infections in northeastern Ohio (Ballash et al. 2014). Cats that host T. gondii excrete oocysts into the environment in their feces, and a single cat can deposit hundreds of millions of oocysts, which may remain infectious for up to 18 months (Tenter et al. 2000).
The study’s authors collected white-tailed deer samples at the Cleveland Metroparks as part of a deer management program. Cat serum samples were collected from cats in a trap, neuter, release (TNR) program in the Greater Cleveland area. TNR programs spay/neuter feral cats and then release them into the environment. Nearly 60% of white-tailed deer and 52% of feral cats tested positive for T. gondii. Older deer and deer in urban environments were more likely to be infected, suggesting horizontal transmission from environmental exposure.
The study’s findings have implications for people as well. Widespread environmental contamination increases the likelihood of human infections. In people, infection has been linked to schizophrenia and can lead to miscarriages, blindness, memory loss, and death (Torrey and Yolken 2013, Gajewski et al. 2014). Due to the creation of tissue cysts in infected deer, people that consume undercooked venison can also acquire T. gondii and the subsequent disease, toxoplasmosis.
The Wildlife Society actively supports the humane removal of feral cats from native ecosystems. See our position statement and fact sheet for more information on how feral and free-ranging domestic cats impact wildlife.
This article was written in cooperation with the American Bird Conservancy.
 

Saturday, February 14, 2015

climate change and migratory birds report - Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center



Read the new report - "Full Annual Cycle Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment, for Migratory Birds of the Upper Midwest and Great Lakes Region"

Go to  http://www.migratoryconnectivityproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/UMGL_CCVA_online_12-30.pdf