Tropical forest birds, which tend to have wings that are short and round relative to their body length and shape, are more sensitive to habitat fragmentation than the long-, slender-winged species common in temperate forests, according to an international collaboration that included scientists from Oregon State University.<\/p>\n
OSU\u2019s Matt Betts and Christopher Wolf teamed with 14 other authors to analyze the wings of more than 1,000 species worldwide in a study led by Thomas Weeks of Imperial College London and published in\u00a0Nature Ecology and Evolution<\/a>.<\/p>\n The research builds on a 2019\u00a0study<\/a>\u00a0that was led by Betts and Wolf and published in\u00a0Science<\/a>. That paper had shown that the nearer a forest species lives to the equator, where animals evolved in environments that weren\u2019t subject to large-scale habitat-altering events like fires and storms, the less well equipped the species is to adapt to current human-caused forest fragmentation.<\/p>\n The wing study provides solid evidence for the idea that forest birds in the lower latitudes \u2013 the\u00a0bare-faced ibis<\/a>, the\u00a0blue and gold macaw<\/a>, the\u00a0green honeycreeper<\/a>, the\u00a0Malaysian rail babbler<\/a>\u00a0and many other colorful, and colorfully named, species \u2013 aren\u2019t good at relocating when their habitat gets broken up because they weren\u2019t required to evolve in ways that would make it easy to get to new areas, Betts said.<\/p>\n \u201cThe new paper shows a strong latitudinal gradient in birds\u2019 ability to disperse \u2013 i.e., move around to find a new place to live,\u201d said Betts, a professor of landscape ecology in the OSU College of Forestry. \u201cBirds toward the poles tend to be better movers, with longer, narrower wings that are better suited to long-distance flight.\u201d<\/p>\n Previously, the reason behind tropical birds\u2019 comparative lack of dispersal skills had not been well<\/a> understood, and there had also been some question as to whether a forest species\u2019 ability to move around was all that important in terms of dealing with habitat fragmentation, Wolf said.<\/p>\n \u201cIt had been\u00a0argued<\/a>\u00a0that species that don\u2019t move much maybe tend to stay put just because they don\u2019t care about losing pieces of their habitat or seeing it fragmented,\u201d said Wolf, a postdoctoral researcher in the College of Forestry. \u201cBut we used a massive dataset that encompassed more than 1,000 birds globally to test whether birds with shorter, stubbier wings are more likely to be fragmentation sensitive, and whether this alone explains the latitudinal gradient we observed. In the end, there was strong support for the idea that birds that are good dispersers are less fragmentation sensitive.\u201d<\/p>\n Examples of temperate forest birds more built for dispersal include woodpeckers, robins, jays, cardinals, owls, turkeys, hawks and eagles.<\/p>\n