Large brain and greater resistance to climate change? There are doubts

In a study recently published in the journal “Nature Communications”, scientists from the Austin University analyzed global deployment maps and other data on about 1,500 species of birds and found several surprising patterns.

Researchers have found that some species of birds reproducing in large geographical areas can still be adapted to a fairly narrow range of climatic conditions. This makes them more susceptible to climate change than previously thought. As an example, they recall the Arctic, which occupies a significant part of the surface of the earth, but has very similar climate patterns throughout its entire area.

– Because this region is so huge, the species that occupy it usually characterize large populations and large sizes of geographical range. These are two features that are often associated with a lower risk of extinction – said Carlos Botero, associate professor of integration biology and the older author of the new study. – The problem is that because many of these species are adapted to a very narrow range of climatic conditions, these seemingly large populations can be quite susceptible to breakdown, when climate patterns begin to change – he added.

The authors combined two species of birds. One beekeepingwell known in North America and Europe, and its breeding area extends on a large area of ​​the Arctic. The second is Trochalopteron erythrocephalum – a species belonging to the Pekinges family, living in a very narrow part of Asia – Nepal and Bhutan. The study showed that the bee -south has a much smaller and more extreme range of climatic conditions than the second bird, which suggests that it may be more at risk of climate change than previously thought.

Scientists have also found that species with a larger brain (in relation to the proportion of the body) are usually adapted to narrow climate niches, which suggests that they can also be more susceptible to climate change than previously thought. The climate niche is the range of different climatic conditions, such as temperature, rainfall and their predictable variability at the time in which the species can develop.

“Larger brain sizes correlate with more flexible behavior, so it is usually expected that large brains birds will be more flexible,” said Botero. – However, it turns out that many birds with large brains are climate specialists – which means that they have evolved to develop in very specific conditions, and therefore can also be more susceptible to climate change than we expected – he supplemented.

To perform the analysis, researchers used the bird range maps, estimated on the basis of hundreds of thousands of direct observations made by scientists-citizens, reported via the EBIRD platform.