With climate change, not all wildlife population shifts are predictable

In a recent study, UMass Amherst
ecologists found a surprise distribution
 shift in 17-year mountain bird study.

Wildlife ecologists who study the effects of climate change assume, with support from several studies, that warming temperatures caused by climate change are forcing animals to move either northward or upslope on mountainsides to stay within their natural climate conditions.

But a new study of lowland and higher-mountain bird species by wildlife ecologists Bill DeLuca and David King at the University of Massachusetts Amherst now reports an unexpected and "unprecedented" inconsistency in such shifts. The majority of the mountain bird community responded against expectation and shifted downslope despite warming trends in the mountains. They say the result "highlights the need for caution when applying conventional expectations to species' responses to climate change."

Read the Science Daily story - “With climate change, not all wildlife population shifts are predictable.”