Paper on lethal bird dehydration out in PNAS and in the press

Tom and Denis authored a paper with Blair Wolf and other colleagues from University of New Mexico, University of Pretoria (South Africa), and U-Mass Amherst ,on our NASA-funded desert birds project. Essentially, we modeled and mapped current and projected rates of risk for lethal dehydration for songbirds in the western United States, and found big changes in store.

Using measured rates of evaporative water loss, hourly gridded weather data, a 4 °C warming scenario, and physiological models, we showed that songbirds in the deserts of the southwestern United States are increasingly susceptible to death from dehydration on hot days. Smaller birds lose water at a proportionally higher rate, and are hence more vulnerable than larger birds to lethal dehydration arising from greater evaporative cooling demands. Our analysis indicates that, by the end of the present century, exposure to potentially lethal conditions could at least quadruple for smaller species. The increasing extent, frequency, and intensity of dehydrating conditions under a warming climate may alter daily activity patterns, geographic range limits, and the conservation status of affected birds.

The work is published in the 28 February 2017 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. Since publication, it has been featured in media accounts by Forbes, NASA, Science News, The Audubon Society, High Country News, and others.