WN@TL: “Winged Sentinels: How Birds are Coping with Climate Change”

Speaker: Benjamin Zuckerberg, Forest and Wildlife Ecology

Bio: Growing up in Brooklyn, New York, Dr. Zuckerberg arrived a bit late to the wonderful world of ecology. He was, however, lucky enough to start studying birds as an undergraduate at Connecticut College, and went on to receive his Masters from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and Ph.D. from the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry where her focused on studying range shifts in bird distributions as a consequence of climate change. He then spent three great years as a postdoc and research associate at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Dr. Zuckerberg joined the faculty at UW-Madison in 2011 and has built a lab focused on studying how modern climate change impacts birds and mammals. He remains a strong advocate for the role of the public in collecting data on wildlife and feels that citizen science has opened entirely new fields in ecological research.

Description: The evidence that wildlife are responding to modern climate change is now overwhelming. There is strong scientific consensus that environmental tipping points are being crossed, and many species are adapting (or failing to adapt) to novel climatic conditions. Birds serve as the proverbial “canary in the coal mine” when it comes to climate change. For this presentation, I will cover how birds are responding to a rapidly changing climate as well as extreme events. From changes in behavior to range-wide shifts, birds are the winged sentinels of modern climate change.

Explore More:

https://zuckerberg.russell.wisc.edu/