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http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/63386/title/Cuckoos_thrown_off_by_climate_change
DEFINITIONS:
• Cuckoo bird: Cuckoos swoop in to the nests of other bird species and lay eggs. After hatching, a cuckoo chick kills its foster siblings and hogs the food for itself. (scientific name: Cuculus canorus)
• Global Warming:The theory that the world's average temperature is increasing due to the burning of fossil fuels and other forms of energy resulting in higher atmospheric concentrations of gases such as carbon dioxide.
• Migration: regular seasonal journey undertaken by many species of birds.
SUMMARY:
• Anders Pape Møller from the university of Paris
- More Cuckoo eggs end up in the nests of birds with long range navigation.
• The climate change makes birds migrations change.
- this puts migration of short range birds out of sync with cuckoos
- the long range birds, however are still mostly in sync with the cuckoos laying pattern.
• By the time the cuckoos are finished with their own migration (Europe to Sub-Sahara), the birds that don't migrate and the short range migration birds are already to far along in their hatching process for the cuckoos to lay their eggs.
- the cuckoo children rely on the fact that they mature faster than the other birds to kill them and take all the food.
- the change in climates does'nt allow them to do this
- scientists predict an extinction in types of cuckoo that use short range birds for their
• What’s driving the shift, Møller says, is that climate change affects migration patterns differently depending on their scope. Cuckoos themselves migrate all the way from Europe to sub-Saharan Africa for the winter. By the time they return in spring, early warming has already pushed the year-round residents and short-distance migrants too far along in their nesting to be good cuckoo targets.
• The same “mistiming” is a worldwide trend in birds and it may threaten many ecosystems.
Discussion:
Global warming is a serious threat to many species of birds that rely on the migration of patterns of other species or types of animal need their own migration times correct to get resources along the way. We need to find a way to global warming from getting much worse, such as using more renewable sources of energy and simply not using as much resources, before it destroys our blue planets ecosystem.
My Questions:
1) how many species face extinction
2) how will these birds adapt to the strict changes
byby vishal vaidya
hope you guys all enjoy. =)
these are pics describing how big the cuckoos get compared to their hosts