Birds

Ever since Darwin, scientists have suspected that the intelligence of an animal has something to do with the size of its brain. The encephalisation theory, for example, argues that the "extra" brain tissue of a larger brain allows more neurons to be devoted to cognitive tasks. However, until now there was no scientific evidence to support this theory, partly owing to the difficulties of quantifying neuron numbers for a large number of species.

The behavior of bird communities in Europe and in the United States and Canada due to climate change is different than in the Mediterranean area. It changes faster in winter, when they migrate, than in spring, when they nest.

A study just published in the scientific journal Nature Communications presents worrying results on animals’ adaptation to climate change. It concludes that while species are changing some aspects of their lives in response to global warming, they are not doing so quickly enough and do not always make the right changes.

CREAF and ICO (Catalan Ornithological Institute) researchers Sergi Herrando and Lluís Brotons have participated in a study that shows populations of birds described as “mountain specialists” to have fallen by 10% in a decade in Europe. The situation is even more alarming in the Pyrenees and elsewhere in the Iberian Peninsula, where mountain bird populations fell by 21%.

A study led by CREAF researcher Judit Lecina Díaz has mapped Spain's carbon and biodiversity hotspots, which are located in the Pyrenees and their foothills, Madrid, Cuenca, La Rioja and Andalusia, and along the coast of the Cantabrian Sea.

Species of birds living on islands have evolved to have larger brains than their continental relatives. Island conditions have prompted this post-colonization evolution, which enhances adaptability to environmental changes.

Birds for their feathers, but many other animals too, suffer the path to extinction because of human whims.

The researcher from McGill University, in Quebec, and CREAF associated, visited us again to talk about animal innovation from different points of view, from the ecological implications to the physiological characteristics that allow it.