Tag Archives: boreal forests

Bird Count

*Birds aren’t flocking to backyard feeders this winter*

What’s in short supply this winter? If you said snow you guessed the first (and obvious) answer. But you may not have noticed what else has been scarce — birds at backyard feeders.

“Our customers are talking about the fact that fewer birds are coming to feeders this winter,” says Charles Shattuck who, with his wife, Kathy, owns Wild Birds Unlimited in Hockessin. “I’ve heard reports of fewer birds at feeders across the East Coast.” (more…)

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NASA: Climate Change May Bring Big Ecosystem Changes

PASADENA, Calif. – By 2100, global climate change will modify plant communities covering almost half of Earth’s land surface and will drive the conversion of nearly 40 percent of land-based ecosystems from one major ecological community type – such as forest, grassland or tundra – toward another, according to a new NASA and university computer modeling study.

Researchers from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif., investigated how Earth’s plant life is likely to react over the next three centuries as Earth’s climate changes in response to rising levels of human-produced greenhouse gases. Study results are published in the journal Climatic Change. (more…)

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Decline in Species Shows Climate Change Warnings Not Exaggerated

One in 10 species could face extinction by the year 2100 if current climate change impacts continue.

This is the result of University of Exeter research, examining studies on the effects of recent climate change on plant and animal species and comparing this with predictions of future declines.

Published in leading journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the study uses the well-established IUCN Red List for linking population declines to extinction risk. The research examines nearly 200 predictions of the future effects of climate change from studies conducted around the world, as well as 130 reports of changes which have already occurred. (more…)

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