Birds in Spain and Morocco are having trouble hearing and copying each other's songs because of the way their habitat has been broken up, according to a study published yesterday.
As a result the birds are living in more isolated groups and only learning songs from their closest neighbors. The researchers believe that these changes in song patterns are an early warning of habitat fragmentation, which could lead to lower genetic diversity and inbred populations.
Paola Laiolo and Jose Tella, of the Estacion Biologica de Donana in Seville, recorded and analyzed the songs of a rare and specialized songbird called Dupont's lark, across 21 localities in Spain and Morocco. This lark has particular requirements and can only live in arid scrub steppe. By comparing song similarity between birds, the researchers could show that broken habitats made the male larks mimic their neighbors' songs more than expected, but lose touch with birds on the other side of the habitat break.
"Neighbors shared up to 70 percent of their phrases, while non-neighbors shared only around 30 percent," Laiolo said. By contrast birds living in pristine habitat shared around 45 percent of their phrases with non-neighbors over a similar distance.
The researchers believe that an increase in agricultural land, forest plantations and roads has fragmented the arid steppe habitat, preventing the Dupont's lark from sharing songs over greater distances.
"The fragmentation confines the species to smaller areas and eventually the genetic diversity of the population will erode," said Laiolo, whose results are reported in the Journal of Applied Ecology.
Such findings are likely to apply to many kinds of wildlife in a variety of habitats and places. Creatures like insects and small mammals that tend to be less mobile than birds are likely to be hit hardest.
For many species in the UK it may already be too late.
"We have been immensely efficient at cutting the country into blocks in the UK," said Andre Farrar, of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. "Now we are trying to stitch some of these blocks back together again, not only to improve genetic diversity of species, but also to moderate the impact of natural disasters like climate change."
Laiolo and Tella suggest that their song-matching technique could be used in other places to measure how fragmented a habitat has become.
However, Peter Salter, a birdsong expert at St Andrews University, said: "We would need to know what the songs are normally like before we can use it as a way of measuring fragmentation. Also, not all birds learn their songs from their neighbors."
Indonesia was to sign an agreement to repatriate two British nationals, including a grandmother languishing on death row for drug-related crimes, an Indonesian government source said yesterday. “The practical arrangement will be signed today. The transfer will be done immediately after the technical side of the transfer is agreed,” the source said, identifying Lindsay Sandiford and 35-year-old Shahab Shahabadi as the people being transferred. Sandiford, a grandmother, was sentenced to death on the island of Bali in 2013 after she was convicted of trafficking drugs. Customs officers found cocaine worth an estimated US$2.14 million hidden in a false bottom in Sandiford’s suitcase when
CAUSE UNKNOWN: Weather and runway conditions were suitable for flight operations at the time of the accident, and no distress signal was sent, authorities said A cargo aircraft skidded off the runway into the sea at Hong Kong International Airport early yesterday, killing two ground crew in a patrol car, in one of the worst accidents in the airport’s 27-year history. The incident occurred at about 3:50am, when the plane is suspected to have lost control upon landing, veering off the runway and crashing through a fence, the Airport Authority Hong Kong said. The jet hit a security patrol car on the perimeter road outside the runway zone, which then fell into the water, it said in a statement. The four crew members on the plane, which
Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and its junior partner yesterday signed a coalition deal, paving the way for Sanae Takaichi to become the nation’s first female prime minister. The 11th-hour agreement with the Japan Innovation Party (JIP) came just a day before the lower house was due to vote on Takaichi’s appointment as the fifth prime minister in as many years. If she wins, she will take office the same day. “I’m very much looking forward to working with you on efforts to make Japan’s economy stronger, and to reshape Japan as a country that can be responsible for future generations,”
SEVEN-MINUTE HEIST: The masked thieves stole nine pieces of 19th-century jewelry, including a crown, which they dropped and damaged as they made their escape The hunt was on yesterday for the band of thieves who stole eight priceless royal pieces of jewelry from the Louvre Museum in the heart of Paris in broad daylight. Officials said a team of 60 investigators was working on the theory that the raid was planned and executed by an organized crime group. The heist reignited a row over a lack of security in France’s museums, with French Minister of Justice yesterday admitting to security flaws in protecting the Louvre. “What is certain is that we have failed, since people were able to park a furniture hoist in the middle of
RSS