[ANALYSIS] Bye-bye, birdie: Study finds North American birds getting smaller
File: The study focused on 52 species -- mostly songbirds dominated by various sparrows, warblers and thrushes.WASHINGTON - Since 1978, researchers have scooped up and measured tens of thousands of birds that died after crashing into buildings in Chicago during spring and fall migrations. Their work has documented what might be called the incredible shrinking bird.
They cited a phenomenon called Bergmann's rule, in which individuals within a species tend to be smaller in warmer regions and larger in colder regions, as reason to believe that species may become smaller over time as temperatures rise.The study focused on 52 species -- mostly songbirds dominated by various sparrows, warblers and thrushes -- that breed in cold regions of North America and spend their winters in locations south of Chicago.
"In other words, climate change seems to be changing both the size and shape of these species," said biologist Brian Weeks of the University of Michigan's School for Environment and Sustainability, lead author of the study published in the journal Ecology Letters.
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