"It appears that the winners from recent climate change were already common habitat generalists that have expanded their ranges, such as Great spotted Woodpecker - up by 139%, likely at the expense of habitat specialists such as the Grey Partridge and Corn Bunting, which have declined by 50% and 29%, respectively, over the period of the study."
What chance did the Grey Partridge and Corn Bunting have in the face of such exploding woodpecker populations? And all because of global warming!
Looks like a rip-snorting BTO classic. I really cannot wait to read it.
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Generally poor show guys- these things are crucial to your success especially in getting your science across.
To be fair, there’s nothing in the paper’s abstract about competition between ‘specialists’ and ‘generalists’, so this might be a case of the PR team bringing their special skills to the table.
The web page was probably written by a teenager with a media studies diploma, and waved through by someone in a shiny suit who can’t wait to get a proper marketing job and start earning some real money. The authors will know they have to keep their heads down, and this is the problem with NGOs. Professionals have to dance to the tune of the marketing men, not the other way round.
http://www.cpbell.co.uk
http://www.youtube.com/CultoftheAmateur
It seems with a marked push for fiscal efficiency, spending on editorial time is getting hit. Perhaps. But I agree it was a fairly bad error, and it seems to have handed climate 'denialists' some easy cannon fodder. We'll see if James Delingpole in the 'Telegraph' picks up on it.That is quite poor sentence structure on the part of the BTO!
Linking gross distribution changes in many species to climate change and/or human activity would seem to cover the field, as these are the only ways in which *widespread* habitat change can be effected. Can you cite another possible cause? I'm sure scientists would be interested if it was a reasonable hypothesis.not thinking about how easy it is to pick very, very large holes in arguments like that. the report is just another run of correlations and associations rather than rigorous science- but the data the BTO has to work with is just that and lots and lots of it. The trends are likely to be correct in the most part but the reasons behind the trends still remain elusive. So it is just another study showing change without and directed thinking into the true causes- past the generic and omnipresent climate change and anthropogenic factors.
General folk are not expected to read these papers. Why do you suppose the BTO came up with this close-to-p*ss-poor, press release.I guess this is a problem when the BTO produces weighty stats-heavy papers than have no clear message for the press- general folk cannot be expected to understand the details with ease.
Bird Study is not free to the ordinary members, only to 'fellows', and that seems a very reasonable thing, given the difficulty of reading behind the jargon for many people. BTO News is the communication which is sent to all members free of charge. This is considerably better in presenting the meaning behind the BTO scientific research than any technical publication intended for one's peers in the same field of work.Something the BTO has to consider generally i think- wanting to widen their membership, but producing incomprehensible papers with a lack of science communication skill. for an example- how many people can understand all of the latest Bird Study (free with membership)- probably only those with some science training. So not very appealing to the general public that their new image/logo etc was supposed to attract.
As you are criticising the BTO as a generality, perhaps you should've paid more attention to the whole of their public 'interface'. Not just to one bad press release and a jargon-filled, technical production for fellow scientists. Generally poor show, Graham, and not just for some parts of your punctuation :eek!:Generally poor show guys- these things are crucial to your success especially in getting your science across.
What they should have done to cause a stir was suggest that people stop feeding birds in winter in gardens.
What they should have done to cause a stir was suggest that people stop feeding birds in winter in gardens. How are these long-distance migrants going to cope when we subside the existence of the residents (i.e. their competitors)...
And which of our resident birds do you suppose are responsible for declines among migrants? Largely, these are feeding on different foods in different habitats, so competition is unlikely to be that strong between them.
Think competition between say tits and and warblers, between different tits (e.g. Marsh and Blue) and between warblers (e.g. Willow and Chiffchaff). Not that people have direct impacts on the latter.
The latter two comparisons don't seem very relevant, since the tits are all resident and the warblers are pretty much all migratory. How much overlap is there in the diets of, say Blue/Great Tits and warbler species? I suspect it's not that much.
It seems with a marked push for fiscal efficiency, spending on editorial time is getting hit. Perhaps. But I agree it was a fairly bad error, and it seems to have handed climate 'denialists' some easy cannon fodder. We'll see if James Delingpole in the 'Telegraph' picks up on it.
Generally poor show, Graham, and not just for some parts of your punctuation :eek!:
It's not at all clear to me how the researchers actually measured "specialisation" in each species. Can anyone enlighten me ?
Maybe they didn't measure it. I think there is a tendency to try to apply models and formulas to something which isn't an exact science to support a hypothesis which is infact nothing more then common sense and obvious.
But you should add "...unless highlighted by addition of a smiley". My use of :eek!: , I thought, acknowledges we all make the occasional typo - however carefully one applies self-editorship.Thanks for your comments especially regarding punctuation. People in glass houses should not throw stones.
I looked several times, but have had to admit defeat in this endeavour. Please feel free to specify.Your post was fairly poor on that front too if you care to look!
If you think that was my intention, then I apologise for misleading you (and anyone else reading it). Had it been so I would have attached a more appropriate icon - or none at all.but i would rather focus on the topic and not pedantic points to try to make you look clever ( you fail by the way).
This might contain the key to declines among long-distance migrants, but it’s unlikely to pique the interest of the likes of the BTO, since it has limited value as a heuristic device for the promotion of their wares as a means of ‘monitoring the impacts of climate change’.
The original intent of Max Nicholson when he founded the organisation had nothing to do about growing some kind of business corporation, and everything to do with creating a sound scientific base for the study of birds within their milieu.