Collapse of desert bird populations likely due to heat stress from climate change

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-09/uoc--cod092919.php

News Release 30-Sep-2019
University of California - Berkeley

As temperatures rise, desert birds need more water to cool off at the same time as deserts are becoming drier, setting some species up for a severe crash, if not extinction, according to a new study from the University of California, Berkeley.

The team that last year documented a collapse of bird communities in Mojave Desert over the last century -- 29 percent of the 135 bird species that were present 100 years ago are less common and less widespread today -- has now identified a likely cause: heat stress associated with climate change.

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