This ominous prediction is the result of a study by an international team of scientists published in the journal Global Change Biology on Tuesday.
The University of Queensland School of Biological Sciences’ researcher Hannah Wauchope says that suitable breeding conditions for Arctic shorebirds could collapse by 2070. “This means that countries throughout the world will have fewer migratory birds reaching their shores,” said Wauchope.
Some of the longest migratory journeys taken by any animals in the world are undertaken by Arctic breeding shorebirds, with some of the birds making journeys of over 20,000 kilometers (12,427 miles) every year to escape the Arctic winters.
One bird, the bar-tailed godwit, flies a distance of 12,000 kilometers (7,456 miles) non-stop every year from its nesting grounds in Alaska to new Zealand.
The study came up with a number of finds, one being that as the Arctic continues to warm, the migratory birds will become increasingly restricted to isolated islands in the Arctic Ocean as they retreat further north. This, in turn, could cause declines in some of the shorebird populations, especially in hard-hit regions.
We are already seeing the warming Arctic opening up to the threats posed by tourism, and mining, “and we must make sure we protect key places for all Arctic species, including these amazing migratory birds,” Wauchope said.
Most shorebirds follow well-established migratory pathways, according to UQ’s Associate Professor, Richard Fuller from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Environmental Decisions (CEED). A worrisome prediction coming out of the study is that it is possible some birds could completely change their migratory pathways, simply to migrate to a more suitable habitat.
“This makes shorebirds an excellent group to investigate how climate change might impact breeding grounds and conservation actions that could address these impacts, Fuller said.
The researchers modeled the suitable climate breeding conditions of 24 Arctic shorebirds and projected them up until 2070. The impact on Arctic shorebirds during the last major warming event that occurred 6,000 to 8,000 years ago was also examined.
“Climatically suitable breeding conditions could shift and contract over the next 70 years, with up to 83 per cent of Arctic bird species losing most of their currently suitable area,” Wauchope said. “This far exceeds the effects of the last major warming event on Earth, but genetic evidence suggests that even then the birds struggled to deal with the warming.”
The study noted that suitable climate and nesting conditions are expected to decline fastest in the regions with the most species, such as western Alaska and eastern Russia, with 66–83 percent of the species losing the majority of their currently suitable areas.
This is because of the increasing “shrubification” of the tundra, and predators such as red foxes moving north as the rising temperatures open up new territory.
This very interesting study, “Rapid climate-driven loss of breeding habitat for Arctic migratory birds,” was published July 19, 2016, in the journal Global Change Biology.
