Latest news with #AlisonJohnston
Time of India
04-05-2025
- Science
- Time of India
New research reveals where North American bird populations are crashing
WASHINGTON: Birds are facing a population crisis, but a lack of high-quality localized data has made it difficult to understand the drivers behind specific declines and to craft effective conservation responses. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now Now, a team of researchers has developed an innovative solution, combining vast amounts of data from a popular birding app with machine learning and advanced statistical methods to overcome the challenges posed by large-scale citizen science projects. Their study, published Thursday in Science, reveals that North American bird populations are being hit hardest in their traditional strongholds, as rapid environmental shifts -- including climate change -- disrupt these once-reliable refuges. "We have known for a long time that bird populations are declining," lead author Alison Johnston, an ornithologist and ecological statistician at the University of St Andrews, told AFP. "What we aimed to do here was to look at better population trends in much more detail," she said -- data that is "a lot more tailored for conservation decisions and understanding what we can actually do on the ground." A landmark 2019 paper also in Science found that North America had lost 2.9 billion breeding adult birds between 1970 and 2017 -- a net loss of nearly a third. The 2025 US State of the Birds report found continued declines in nearly every ecological biome. Birds play vital roles in ecosystems, from pollinating plants and dispersing seeds to controlling pests. Their loss disrupts food chains, undermines forest health, reduces crop yields -- and deprives people of the joy of watching species that have long been part of human culture. But the threats are diverse: from prairie loss impacting Baird's Sparrows in the Midwest to Hawaiian birds threatened by rising seas and invasive predators, including cats. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now Johnston and colleagues turned to eBird, an open-source project, analyzing 36 million observations spanning 2007 to 2021 across North America, Central America, and the Caribbean. A major challenge with citizen science data is separating changes in bird populations from changes in how people watch birds. The team overcame this with several innovations: using only checklists where observers recorded all species seen; accounting for variables like observation time and distance traveled; and applying a machine learning model that controlled for shifting birding behavior. They validated the approach through thousands of simulations, ultimately focusing on 495 species for which the results proved reliable. Unlike previous monitoring that tracked trends at the state or regional level, their analysis looked at plots 27 kilometers by 27 kilometers (17 miles by 17 miles) -- roughly the size of New York City. Key findings included that 97 percent of species had both areas of increasing population and areas of decline, revealing hidden complexity. Wood ducks for instance are declining in the Southeast US but thriving farther north, suggesting a climate-related shift. The study also found that 83 percent of species are shrinking fastest in areas where they were most abundant, particularly grassland and aridland breeders. The reasons aren't fully known, but one theory is that birds adapted to rich environments may be less resilient to rapid change than those evolved for harsher conditions. Conversely, some aridland, forest, and generalist species are rebounding in parts of their range where they were once scarce -- pointing to pockets of opportunity. The findings are already being used by wildlife agencies, for example in permitting wind energy projects to minimize impacts on species such as Bald Eagles.
Express Tribune
02-05-2025
- Science
- Express Tribune
US bird populations are still crashing
Birds are facing a population crisis, but a lack of high-quality localized data has made it difficult to understand the drivers behind specific declines and to craft effective conservation responses. Now, a team of researchers has developed an innovative solution, combining vast amounts of data from a popular birding app with machine learning and advanced statistical methods to overcome the challenges posed by large-scale citizen science projects. Their study, published Thursday in Science, reveals that North American bird populations are being hit hardest in their traditional strongholds, as rapid environmental shifts — including climate change — disrupt these once-reliable refuges. "We have known for a long time that bird populations are declining," lead author Alison Johnston, an ornithologist and ecological statistician at the University of St Andrews, told AFP. "What we aimed to do here was to look at better population trends in much more detail," she said — data that is "a lot more tailored for conservation decisions and understanding what we can actually do on the ground." A landmark 2019 paper also in Science found that North America had lost 2.9 billion breeding adult birds between 1970 and 2017 — a net loss of nearly a third. The 2025 US State of the Birds report found continued declines in nearly every ecological biome. Birds play vital roles in ecosystems, from pollinating plants and dispersing seeds to controlling pests. Their loss disrupts food chains, undermines forest health, reduces crop yields — and deprives people of the joy of watching species that have long been part of human culture.
Yahoo
01-05-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Collapsing bird numbers in North America prompt fears of ecological crisis
Bird populations across North America are falling most quickly in areas where they are most abundant, according to new research, prompting fears of ecological collapse in previously protected areas. Analysis of nearly 500 bird species across North America has found that three-quarters are declining across their ranges, with two-thirds of the total shrinking significantly. The study, published in the journal Science, indicates that former strongholds for bird species are no longer safe, particularly in grasslands, drylands and the Arctic. In one of the most ambitious uses of citizen science data so far, scientists at Princeton University used observations from eBird, a popular application used by birdwatchers to record sightings, to model changes between 2007 and 2021. The granularity of the data allowed researchers to track the rate of change in 27 sq km (10 sq miles) segments across North America, showing dramatic declines in areas where less than two decades ago bird species had thrived. 'We've known for several years that a lot of bird species in North America have been declining. With this study, we were aiming to understand in much finer spatial resolution where birds were declining and where they might be increasing. Rather than having a range-wide trend to see if a species is going up or down, we want to know where it is going up and down,' said Alison Johnston, director of the Centre for Research into Ecological and Environmental Modelling, who led the study. 'The main ecological finding is that the locations where these species were thriving in the past, where the environments were really well suited to birds, are now the places where they are suffering the most,' she said. The researchers said further studies were needed to explain the reasons behind the changes, many of which were dramatic, with populations falling by more than 10% a year in some areas. Global heating and habitat change were put forward as the main theories behind the shifts, but Johnston said they ultimately did not know. 'The way I interpret this result is that it's indicative of major changes in our world,' she said. 'The fact that where birds used to have strongholds, where there used to be a lot of resources, where the environments were really suitable, are now the places where they are declining most, that suggests to me that we are just seeing fundamental changes to the environments around us. The birds are like the canary in the coalmine,' she said. The research adds to a recent series of studies that have documented severe declines of birds in nature reserves and protected areas. Related: In the most untouched, pristine parts of the Amazon, birds are dying. Scientists may finally know why Despite the worrying overall picture, the researchers found pockets of stability in bird populations in their analysis, such as the Appalachians and western mountains. In addition, 97% of all bird species had some pockets where their populations were increasing. The team at Princeton University has previously developed methods for reliably converting citizen science observations in apps such as eBird into data that can be used to monitor population changes in a single species. The study authors only included results that had passed strict reliability checks. Prof Amanda Rodewald from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, a co-author on the study, said the methods would allow conservationists to target their efforts. 'It is this kind of small-scale information across broad geographies that has been lacking and it's exactly what we need to make smart conservation decisions,' she said. 'These data products give us a new lens to detect and diagnose population declines and to respond to them in a way that's strategic, precise and flexible. That's a gamechanger for conservation.' Ian Burfield, a global science coordinator with BirdLife, who was not involved in the study, welcomed the research and said it highlighted areas for further investigation. 'North American birds are one of very few taxonomic groups and regions where such data exist to facilitate this approach. This emphasises the vital need for more field data collection, both through formal monitoring schemes and citizen science efforts, in many other parts of the world, especially in the biodiversity-rich tropics,' he said. Find more age of extinction coverage here, and follow the biodiversity reporters Phoebe Weston and Patrick Greenfield in the Guardian app for more nature coverage
Yahoo
01-05-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
New research reveals where N. American bird populations are crashing
Birds are facing a population crisis, but a lack of high-quality localized data has made it difficult to understand the drivers behind specific declines and to craft effective conservation responses. Now, a team of researchers has developed an innovative solution, combining vast amounts of data from a popular birding app with machine learning and advanced statistical methods to overcome the challenges posed by large-scale citizen science projects. Their study, published Thursday in Science, reveals that North American bird populations are being hit hardest in their traditional strongholds, as rapid environmental shifts -- including climate change -- disrupt these once-reliable refuges. "We have known for a long time that bird populations are declining," lead author Alison Johnston, an ornithologist and ecological statistician at the University of St Andrews, told AFP. "What we aimed to do here was to look at better population trends in much more detail," she said -- data that is "a lot more tailored for conservation decisions and understanding what we can actually do on the ground." A landmark 2019 paper also in Science found that North America had lost 2.9 billion breeding adult birds between 1970 and 2017 -- a net loss of nearly a third. The 2025 US State of the Birds report found continued declines in nearly every ecological biome. Birds play vital roles in ecosystems, from pollinating plants and dispersing seeds to controlling pests. Their loss disrupts food chains, undermines forest health, reduces crop yields -- and deprives people of the joy of watching species that have long been part of human culture. But the threats are diverse: from prairie loss impacting Baird's Sparrows in the Midwest to Hawaiian birds threatened by rising seas and invasive predators, including cats. Johnston and colleagues turned to eBird, an open-source project, analyzing 36 million observations spanning 2007 to 2021 across North America, Central America, and the Caribbean. A major challenge with citizen science data is separating changes in bird populations from changes in how people watch birds. The team overcame this with several innovations: using only checklists where observers recorded all species seen; accounting for variables like observation time and distance traveled; and applying a machine learning model that controlled for shifting birding behavior. They validated the approach through thousands of simulations, ultimately focusing on 495 species for which the results proved reliable. Unlike previous monitoring that tracked trends at the state or regional level, their analysis looked at plots 27 kilometers by 27 kilometers (17 miles by 17 miles) -- roughly the size of New York City. Key findings included that 97 percent of species had both areas of increasing population and areas of decline, revealing hidden complexity. Wood ducks for instance are declining in the Southeast US but thriving farther north, suggesting a climate-related shift. The study also found that 83 percent of species are shrinking fastest in areas where they were most abundant, particularly grassland and aridland breeders. The reasons aren't fully known, but one theory is that birds adapted to rich environments may be less resilient to rapid change than those evolved for harsher conditions. Conversely, some aridland, forest, and generalist species are rebounding in parts of their range where they were once scarce -- pointing to pockets of opportunity. The findings are already being used by wildlife agencies, for example in permitting wind energy projects to minimize impacts on species such as Bald Eagles. ia/des
France 24
01-05-2025
- Science
- France 24
New research reveals where N. American bird populations are crashing
Now, a team of researchers has developed an innovative solution, combining vast amounts of data from a popular birding app with machine learning and advanced statistical methods to overcome the challenges posed by large-scale citizen science projects. Their study, published Thursday in Science, reveals that North American bird populations are being hit hardest in their traditional strongholds, as rapid environmental shifts -- including climate change -- disrupt these once-reliable refuges. "We have known for a long time that bird populations are declining," lead author Alison Johnston, an ornithologist and ecological statistician at the University of St Andrews, told AFP. "What we aimed to do here was to look at better population trends in much more detail," she said -- data that is "a lot more tailored for conservation decisions and understanding what we can actually do on the ground." A landmark 2019 paper also in Science found that North America had lost 2.9 billion breeding adult birds between 1970 and 2017 -- a net loss of nearly a third. The 2025 US State of the Birds report found continued declines in nearly every ecological biome. Birds play vital roles in ecosystems, from pollinating plants and dispersing seeds to controlling pests. Their loss disrupts food chains, undermines forest health, reduces crop yields -- and deprives people of the joy of watching species that have long been part of human culture. But the threats are diverse: from prairie loss impacting Baird's Sparrows in the Midwest to Hawaiian birds threatened by rising seas and invasive predators, including cats. Johnston and colleagues turned to eBird, an open-source project, analyzing 36 million observations spanning 2007 to 2021 across North America, Central America, and the Caribbean. A major challenge with citizen science data is separating changes in bird populations from changes in how people watch birds. The team overcame this with several innovations: using only checklists where observers recorded all species seen; accounting for variables like observation time and distance traveled; and applying a machine learning model that controlled for shifting birding behavior. They validated the approach through thousands of simulations, ultimately focusing on 495 species for which the results proved reliable. Unlike previous monitoring that tracked trends at the state or regional level, their analysis looked at plots 27 kilometers by 27 kilometers (17 miles by 17 miles) -- roughly the size of New York City. Key findings included that 97 percent of species had both areas of increasing population and areas of decline, revealing hidden complexity. Wood ducks for instance are declining in the Southeast US but thriving farther north, suggesting a climate-related shift. The study also found that 83 percent of species are shrinking fastest in areas where they were most abundant, particularly grassland and aridland breeders. The reasons aren't fully known, but one theory is that birds adapted to rich environments may be less resilient to rapid change than those evolved for harsher conditions. Conversely, some aridland, forest, and generalist species are rebounding in parts of their range where they were once scarce -- pointing to pockets of opportunity. The findings are already being used by wildlife agencies, for example in permitting wind energy projects to minimize impacts on species such as Bald Eagles. © 2025 AFP
