Porterville Recorder

Study: Climate change possible cause of bird species decline

- THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Climate change could be to blame for the collapse of bird population­s in the desert along the Nevada-california border, scientists said.

The number of bird species has fallen by an average of 43 percent over the past century at survey sites across an area larger than New York state, according to a new study by researcher­s at the University of California, Berkeley.

The study shows almost a third of species are less common and widespread now than they once were throughout the region.

The study’s authors, Steven Beissinger and Kelly Iknayan, point to less hospitable conditions in the Mojave Desert as the probable cause.

“California deserts have already experience­d quite a bit of drying and warming because of climate change, and this might be enough to push birds over the edge,” said Iknayan, who conducted the research for her doctoral thesis at UC Berkeley. “It seems like we are losing part of the desert ecosystem.”

“The Mojave Desert is now nearly half empty of birds,” said Beissinger, a UC Berkeley professor of environmen­tal science, policy and management. “This appears to be a new baseline, and we don’t know if it’s stable or if it will continue to decline.”

The researcher­s spent three years searching for birds at 61 locations on both sides of the border, including survey sites in the Spring Mountains and at Desert National Wildlife Refuge, just outside of Las Vegas, the Las Vegas Review-journal reported .

They also surveyed sites across Death Valley and Joshua Tree national parks and Mojave National Preserve,

Iknayan revisited the same sites UC Berkeley biologist Joseph Grinnell and his colleagues surveyed between 1908 and 1947.

Iknayan and Beissinger found that areas with reduced rainfall lost more birds species than sites that remained wetter.

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