A new study at Dartmouth College and Tulane University suggests that global climate changes could influence the number of songbirds populating the nation's woodlands and parks. In a paper published in the June 16 issue of Science , researchers T. Scott Sillett and Richard T. Holmes, both of Dartmouth College, and Thomas W. Sherry, of Tulane University, analyzed 13 years of data on the black-throated blue warbler, a migratory songbird. The black-throated blue warbler is a member of the group of birds known as Neotropical migrants. These species breed in North America and spend the winter in Latin America and the Caribbean. In recent years scientists have become alarmed by population declines in many Neotropical migrant species.
Most birds breeding in North American forests during the summer are Neotropical migrants.
Sillett is a researcher and doctoral degree candidate in the Department of Biological Sciences at Dartmouth, where Holmes is as a professor of environmental biology. Sherry is a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at Tulane. A photo of a pair of black-throated blue warblers is available for digital transmission.