Sunday, June 01, 2025

Hummingbird Beaks Quickly Evolved Due to Backyard Feeders

According to a recent study in Global Change Biology, a journal focused on environmental change, the use and prevalence of hummingbird feeders like those red and clear plastic ones filled with homemade sugar water - changed the size and shape of the birds' beaks in just a few generations. "Very simplified, the bills get longer and they become more slender, and that helps to have a larger tongue inside that can get more nectar from the feeder at a time," one of the biggest takeaways was just how quickly evolution -- something generally assumed to happen over millions of years can take place. "It's a demonstration of how evolution happens, like, literally in front of our eyes. And we just need to pay attention to it," he says.

Posted by censored at 10:32 AM | 3 COMMENTS | permalink

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Bird Feeders Have Caused a Dramatic Evolution of California Hummingbirds

https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/05/24/0213237/bird-feeders-have-caused-a-dramatic-evolution-of-california-hummingbirds?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed [image or embed]

" Slashdot (@slashdot.org) May 24, 2025 at 10:42 AM

Comments

Dakin says the study adds nuance to our conception of humans as an evolutionary force. Often, researchers think of humans as exerting selective pressures through environmental damage or deliberate domestication. But as with Anna's hummingbird, "I think we're going to find more and more examples of contemporary and subtle changes," she says, "that we're shaping, indirectly, in many more species."

#1 | Posted by censored at 2025-05-31 12:59 PM

"Other scientists had previously noted the tendency of English great ---- to have longer beaks than their mainland European counterparts.

In fact, some had characterized the UK birds as a separate subspecies based on this characteristic.

The English and Dutch researchers collected their own data by looking at historic museum collections and found that indeed, on average, UK birds had significantly longer beaks. In fact, beak length among the English birds had increased very quickly " over just thirteen generations.

Clearly, something was going on ... but what?" :

evolution.berkeley.edu

(ok, I just wanted to post that first sentence, lol!)

#2 | Posted by Corky at 2025-05-31 03:10 PM

"Evolution? The world is flat!"

MAGAT dumbfuqs

#3 | Posted by LegallyYourDead at 2025-06-01 01:47 PM

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