[Image of University of Guelph News logo, followed by aerial footage of the U of G campus]
[Researcher Alex Sutton speaking over short videos and still images of Canada jays feeding from a bird feeder and on snow-covered ground.]
What would happen if someone kept unplugging and plugging in your freezer? All the food you had stored there would eventually go rotten.
That is essentially what is happening to non-migratory birds, like the Canada Jay, who store their food for survival and reproduction through the winter. These frequent freeze-thaw cycles caused by climate change are thawing and re-freezing their food.
Myself, Drs. Dan Strickland and Nikole Freeman and Dr. Ryan Norris with the University of Guelph’s Department of Integrative Biology are the first to link food spoilage caused by frequent freeze-thaw events with the decline in the population of Canada Jay birds.
Found in Canada’s boreal forests, Canada jays store meat, berries and other perishable food, using the natural environment as a freezer. We studied these birds in Algonquin Park where their numbers have fallen by about half over the past four decades.
We found not only is the food spoilage hindering reproduction, but the birds that are born are generally in poorer condition, weigh less and are less likely to survive to breed. Continued spoilage of cached food due fall weather will likely further drive the population decline and could result in the disappearance of these iconic birds from Algonquin Park.
Our research provides direct evidence of how a changing climate is directly linked to population decline.