Dave Mehlman, the director of The Nature Conservancy’s migratory bird program, is blogging all week about the new “State of the Birds 2010″ report, of which he is a co-author. Read all his posts on the report — then go to my.nature.org to learn more about the report and the Conservancy’s work to protect birds.

The 2010 State of the Birds report focuses on birds and climate change — and found that birds of the three primary terrestrial habitat types (aridlands, grasslands, forests) showed relatively the least vulnerability to global warming.

However, each of these habitat types contains species that are dramatically more vulnerable to climate change. Even more notable, most of these species are not currently considered of conservation concern, suggesting that future attention will be warranted if action is not taken now.

Aridlands and grasslands share similar predicted effects of climate change: They will become warmer and drier. In aridlands, we also expect the already variable precipitation regime to become yet more variable, with longer and harder droughts and infrequent spells of heavy precipitation.

Aridlands are also at risk of increased invasion by non-native species of plants which could have major negative effects on our native avifauna. Examples of vulnerable aridlands species are found across the country, including Greater and Gunnison Sage-Grouse of the Colorado Plateau and Great Basin, Bendire’s and Crissal Thrasher of the Chihuahuan Desert, Black-capped Vireo of the Edwards Plateau, and Wrentit of the coastal California chaparral.

Grasslands are at great risk of invasion by woody species — both native and introduced — that can irretrievably alter these systems and affect the birds that rely on them. Although some grassland species, such as Loggerhead Shrike and Northern Bobwhite, are tolerant of some degree of woody plant cover, many other species of grassland birds, such as Chestnut-collared Longspur, will disappear with even a slight increase in woody shrubs. Other grasslands species particularly vulnerable to climate change include resident birds such as the Sharp-tailed Grouse and Greater and Lesser Prairie-Chicken and long distance migrants such as Wilson’s Phalarope, Dickcissel, and Bobolink.

Although birds of forests show relatively the least vulnerability to climate change of all habitats we analyzed, we nevertheless expect change to occur. Northward shifts in tree species’ ranges, increases in the frequency of insect outbreaks, longer and more severe fire seasons, and generally drier conditions will all result in changed bird species distributions.

Some of the most vulnerable forest species include those restricted to isolated, small habitat types in either the breeding or wintering season, such as Kirtland’s Warbler or Bicknell’s Thrush.  Of most concern, however, are a group of species known as “aerial insectivores”, such as Black Swift, Whip-poor-will, and Chuck-will’s-widow, which, in addition to the factors listed above, are at risk from declines in their medium and large-bodied insect prey.

(Image: Bobolink, Chester County, Pennsylvania. Image credit: kellycolganazar/Flickr through a Creative Commons license.)

Opinions expressed here and in any corresponding comments are the personal opinions of the original authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Nature Conservancy. For more information about our editorial policy and legal terms of use, see our About This Blog page.

Dave Mehlman, the director of The Nature Conservancy’s migratory bird program, is blogging all week about the new “State of the Birds 2010″ report, of which he is a co-author. Read all his posts on the report — then go to my.nature.org to learn more about the report and the Conservancy’s work to protect birds.

The 2010 State of the Birds report focuses on birds and climate change, and shows that birds of Arctic and Alpine habitats are some of the most vulnerable in the country to climate change.

Documented temperature increases in the Arctic are already greater than in other regions — and we expect equally dramatic changes in the distribution of surface-water vegetation and food resources. Given that Alpine habitats are inherently insular in nature, we expect many of the effects of climate change on islands to be duplicated in Alpine areas, including the total loss of these habitats at lower elevations and latitudes.

Species affected by these changes including many of our long-distance migrating shorebirds and waterfowl, plus species restricted to the highest elevation habitats of the interior mountains. These include Surfbird and Black Turnstone, which breed on the Arctic tundra, and Brown-capped Rosy-Finch of the Rocky Mountains.

Melting permafrost may release contaminants into the environment, adding new threats to those faced by Spectacled Eider, Yellow-billed Loon, and Sabine’s Gull.  Changes in the abundance and distribution of small mammals could lead to decreases in Snowy Owls and jaegers or an increase in their reliance on birds and other prey.

Although wetlands birds in general show relatively lower vulnerability to climate change compared to other habitat types, it is clear that even small changes in precipitation and temperature can degrade or eliminate wetlands over broad areas. This is especially true of the shallow wetlands of the Prairie Potholes, Americas “duck factory.”  Examples of species particularly vulnerable include Western and Clark’s Grebes, Northern Pintail, and Black and Clapper Rails.

(Image: Snowy owl against snow in Alberta, Canada. Image credit: BugMan50/Flickr through a Creative Commons license.)

Opinions expressed here and in any corresponding comments are the personal opinions of the original authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Nature Conservancy. For more information about our editorial policy and legal terms of use, see our About This Blog page.

Dave Mehlman, the director of The Nature Conservancy’s migratory bird program, is blogging all week about the new “State of the Birds 2010″ report, of which he is a co-author. Read all his posts on the report — then go to my.nature.org to learn more about the report and the Conservancy’s work to protect birds.

The 2010 State of the Birds report focuses on birds and climate change. Of all the habitat types examined for the vulnerability of their birds to climate change, oceans stand out: all of the 67 oceanic birds we considered had medium or high vulnerability to climate change. Two other habitat types also defined by their connection to marine environments showed high vulnerability to climate change: coasts and islands (including Pacific and Caribbean islands).

Birds of the nation’s oceans — which include species such as Laysan and Black-footed Albatrosses, Black-capped Petrel, shearwaters, puffins, Common and Thick-billed Murres, and auklets — have numerous traits which make them slow or unable to adapt to climate change:

• Most of these species have what scientists call “low reproductive potential” (they do not breed until several years old, produce one egg every year or every two years, and/or have very high mortality of young birds).
• Many nest in highly concentrated colonies on islands and forage long distances for food, which is in itself very vulnerability to climate change.

This combination of factors makes all ocean birds vulnerable — and argues for increased conservation attention for this group.

Birds of coastal habitats are almost equally at risk, primarily from rising sea level, but also from increased flooding and erosion. These species occur across the country in an array of habitats, including Black and American Oystercatchers, whose low-lying beach nesting habitat may disappear; Seaside and Saltmarsh Sparrows, which are exclusively dependent on low lying salt marshes that may be the first to go; and seabirds such as Ivory Gull, Aleutian Tern, and Kittlitz’s Murrelet, which depend on coastal marine food webs that are at risk of disruption.

Island birds, particularly those from Hawaii, showed marked vulnerability to climate change, paralleling a finding from the 2009 report.  A variety of factors combine to produce this effect, including:

• Rising sea levels and temperatures, which reduce both coastal and terrestrial habitats;
• The small size of islands generally; changes in precipitation amounts and patterns; and
• Potential increases in frequency of natural disasters.

High elevation forest birds, such as the Puaiohi and ‘Akiapola’au of Hawaii, Elfin-woods Warbler of Puerto Rico, and Rota Bridled White-eye of the Northern Marianas face numerous challenges due to constriction or outright loss of their habitat and (in Hawaii) loss of previously malaria-free refuges.  Coastal nesting island birds, as in the rest of the country, are at great risk; examples include the Laysan Finch of Hawaii, American Flamingo in the Caribbean, and Micronesian Megapode in the Northern Marianas.

Opinions expressed here and in any corresponding comments are the personal opinions of the original authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Nature Conservancy. For more information about our editorial policy and legal terms of use, see our About This Blog page.

(Image: American Flamingoes. Credit: cliff1066™/Flickr through a Creative Commons license.)

1. What’s killing the great forests of western North America? (Yale Environment 360)
2. Who’s growing more skeptical of climate change in the United States? (The Vine)
3. Why is Japan frightened of China’s green tech investments? (GreenBiz)
4. Who has the world’s first skyscraper with built-in wind turbines? (Inhabitat)
5. What’s the carbon emission toll caused by a single page view of Treehugger? (Treehugger)

1. Deep sea creatures — what do they eat down there? Wood, heat and spinach…on a bed of whale carcass, natch. (Blogfish)
2. Europeans love a new green toilet that separates #1 and #2. (CNET News)
3. Just how tight are some U.S. Senate offices and the anti-climate action lobby?  (Solve Climate)
4. A new UN climate change group is (surprise!) all white, all male. (Dot Earth)
5. A U.S. Congressman wants all federal buildings to become bird friendly. (Mongabay)

The word 'water', in various languages, projected on a wall of mist

I took my kids last month on President’s Day to see a special exhibit at the Great Lakes Science Center in Cleveland called “Water: H₂O = Life.”  To those who think this means I dragged my kids on their vacation day to an event related to my career, well…you’re right.

However…

First, we also visited an indoor rainforest where they saw orangutans, pythons and crocodiles and then saw a jaw-dropping IMAX movie about prehistoric “sea monsters.” So they had their fun.

Second, it’s not like I work for Allstate and roped them into an exhibit called “Insurance Premiums Through Time.”  They got a lot out of the exhibit, particularly its various hands-on activities.

But I definitely had the most fun. For context, concepts like environmental flows are generally not at the forefront of most people’s minds, and so my job can be somewhat hard to explain. But stepping foot into “Water = Life,” crowded on this holiday, was like entering an alternate reality where everyone understood and cared deeply about the things that I work on.

And all my favorite issues were right there — the importance of flow regimes, the quest for “better dams,” how floodplains and flood pulses drive river productivity and deliver great benefits to people.

Luca removes a dam

How rarely do I actually get to say things like: “You see here, below the dam the flow has high energy and it carries away all the sand. But behind the dam, the water flow doesn’t have energy and the sand drops out and into the reservoir. But now if you remove the dam…”

(At this point, my seven-year old son pulled a lever, removing the model-sized dam that backed up water in a plexiglass flume.)

“…you can see the river has enough energy to pick up all that sand and move it throughout the whole river.”

Such phrases usually aren’t as compelling as “Did you see that reverse jam from LeBron last night?” but here, in this alternate reality, rather than seeing quizzical looks, I noticed several bystanders nodding their heads thoughtfully. And I just knew what they were thinking, “Ah yes, now I can see how dams interrupt processes of sediment transport, thereby impacting downstream channel morphology.” I could just see it in their eyes…

But seriously, it was a great exhibit. My kids watched rainfall percolate through the gravel and sand of an aquifer (cross-sectioned behind Plexiglass) and then worked a hand pump to extract water from the aquifer and watched as the water table dropped until an artesian well stopped flowing.  We sat on a row of painted-on toilet seats to view a short movie about where our water comes from and — simply too good to be true for elementary kids — where it goes after we flush.

“Water = Life” is a traveling exhibit developed by a group of museums lead by the American Museum of Natural History (check out this overview of the exhibit and freshwater conservation). If you’d like to learn more about water and how rivers work, it’s definitely worth a visit. Cleveland is the last planned stop in the United States, ending on April 11, followed by visits to Canberra, Australia and then Toronto. The exhibit may continue traveling after that, so if you’re interested, encourage your local science or natural history museum to sponsor a visit.

Wren and her stuffed frog, oblivious to the Mekong giant catfish lurking just beneath the surface.

(Image credits: Jeff Opperman/TNC.)

Opinions expressed here and in any corresponding comments are the personal opinions of the original authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Nature Conservancy. For more information about our editorial policy and legal terms of use, see our About This Blog page.

1. Why are great white sharks migrating 1,600 miles to pick fights with giant squids? (LA Times)
2. The Maldives (famous for being threatened by sea-level rise from climate change) buys its own floating island. (CleanTechnica)
3. Melting frozen Arctic methane might sell newspapers — but CO2 is still the greenhouse gas worth twisting your knickers over. (DotEarth)
4. Which activity does NASA say is the greatest global warming culprit? (EcoGeek)
5. Cultural clash: When Asian giant hornets and European honeybees fight. (The Vine)

What a difference a year makes! When the 2007-2008 Brazilian Amazon deforestation figures came out in 2008 and showed a slight uptick, our leaders here in Brazil did what politicians the world over do when presented with inconvenient facts: they tried to shoot the messenger.

President Lula and his chief of staff, Djilma Roussef, were loud in their protestations that the methodology was wrong, that the figures were questionable, etc. etc. Which would have been more convincing had Brazil’s Space Institute, the institute responsible for the numbers, not compiled over the last 25 years a deserved reputation as the world’s leading centre for tracking deforestation.

Fortunately, Brazil being the thriving democracy it is, the Space Institute’s director robustly defended the numbers, the media had a field day, and Lula and Djilma cut their losses and moved on.

No questioning of the latest figures released in November, however, and easy to see why — the preliminary figure for 2008-2009 is around 7,000 square kilometers, the lowest since records began in 1988.

This report accelerates a long-term trend of decline in Amazon deforestation that began in 2004-2005. Lula and Djilma — now Lula’s candidate to succeed him as president in this year’s election — practically elbowed the environment minister away from the cameras in the nationally televised press conference to announce the report, which led off all the evening news bulletins. All very amusing for the few who remembered what happened exactly a year ago.

So — unambiguous good news for the Amazon, surely? Well, yes, but only up to a point. I have a lot of sympathy for governments of all stripes that constantly have to deal with environmentalists who are determined to see doom and gloom from even the most upbeat of news items, but there is less to this good news than meets the eye.

The Brazilian government was quick to credit its own actions for the decline in deforestation, and it is true that the federal authorities have been much more active in recent years in cracking down on illegal logging and keeping invaders out of protected areas and indigenous reserves. They deserve a great deal of credit for the deforestation trend, especially as much federal enforcement takes place in the teeth of entrenched resistance from state and local governments in the Amazon, dominated as they often are by the deforesters and their allies.

But this year’s figure fell by a huge amount — over 50% from the year before. Which leads the reasonable observer to conclude that the sharp (and, in Brazil, short) economic downturn which began in late 2008 must have had a lot to do with it. That downturn is now finished and our economy here in Brazil is roaring ahead, along with China’s, as the emerging economies lead the world out of recession for the first time.

We can be confident that real progress on deforestation is being made when we have a number of years of high economic growth combined with low deforestation. That looked like it might be starting to happen from 2005 to 2007, but then along came the 2008-2009 economic crash to mess up the trend pattern.

Brazil looks very well set for 5-6% GDP growth over the next three to four years. If deforestation stays at or even below this year’s level at that level of GDP growth, it really will be time to open the champagne. For now, jubilant press conferences or no, best to keep it on ice.

(Image: Deforestation from fire, Roraima state, Brazil. Credit: John Maier, Jr/Still Images; posted to Flickr by bbcworldservice and used through a Creative Commons license.)

Opinions expressed here and in any corresponding comments are the personal opinions of the original authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Nature Conservancy. For more information about our editorial policy and legal terms of use, see our About This Blog page.

1. A new book says climate change will craft a new world order — United States and E.U. vs. China and Russia. (Climate Feedback)
2. Why the “Stop Aquatic Hitchhikers” campaign is state-of-the-art conservation marketing. (Conservation Maven)
3. The new climate change battleground: The American classroom. (Dot Earth)
4. Greenhouse gases so hog the spotlight — so here’s a look at the neglected airborne pollutants. (The Vine)
5. The 5 movies that should win an Oscar from a green standpoint (yes, yes,”Avatar” is still one of them). (The Daily Green)

1. Younger Americans are disturbingly apathetic toward climate change.  Kids these days… (Yale e360)
2. Scientists debate the relationship between climate change and infectious diseases.  (Scientific American)
3. A new “tacoshed” project calculates the carbon footprint of the world’s/my favorite Mexican delicacy.  (GreenBiz)
4. Just one of the many reasons why healthy coral reefs are so crucial:  they produce clouds and affect coastal precipitation.  (Mongabay)
5. Does the U.S. have enough space to allow bison to thrive?  (dotEarth)