The paper is published in the journal Biotropica<\/a>.<\/p>\n Situated high up in mountains and surrounded by low-level clouds, a cloud forest is an ecosystem that drinks up moisture directly from clouds.<\/p>\n Walking into this misty, evergreen place, you will almost believe that you have just crossed the bridge to the forest kingdom of Terabithia.<\/p>\n Accounting for only 1 percent of the world\u2019s forests<\/a>, cloud forests have the highest level of botanical and biodiversity.<\/p>\n \u201cCloud forests are pretty special,\u201d Monte Neate-Clegg, the lead researcher and a doctoral student at the University of Utah, said in a statement. \u201cThe tropics hold most of the world\u2019s biodiversity to begin with, and then the mountain slopes hold the greatest biodiversity within the tropics.\u201d<\/p>\n Cloud forests in Cusuco National Park, Honduras, he cited as an example, is home to at least six amphibian species that are not known in any other parts of the world.<\/p>\n The park also supports species large and small — from jaguars to hummingbirds.<\/p>\n \u201cCusuco National Park is montane cloud forest, a rich diverse ecosystem full of specialized species making it important to monitor,\u201d said Neate-Clegg.<\/p>\n Sadly, even in this magical place, something reminds us of the real world — the rising temperature.<\/p>\n In 2012, a team of researchers warned<\/a> that climate change will likely wipe out 90 percent of Mexico\u2019s cloud forests and as many as 70 percent of its plant and animal species by 2080.<\/p>\n Species living in mountainous regions may be more sensitive to climate change because of various factors affecting community assembly across elevational gradients.<\/p>\n Moreover, scientists, including \u00c7a\u011fan \u015eekercio\u011flu<\/a>, an associate professor of biology at the University of Utah and the study\u2019s co-author, predicted<\/a> that rising temperatures and changes in precipitation would cause species, particularly birds, to shift to higher elevations, shrinking their habitat and boosting the risk of extinction.<\/p>\n In addition to the rising temperature, cloud forests receive little practical protection from deforestation and land conversion.<\/p>\n \u201cClimate change is a big threat to them as well as deforestation, which is removing habitat at lower elevations,\u201d said Neate-Clegg.<\/p>\n Realizing the dire consequences, Neate-Clegg and his colleagues, including researchers from the UK and Belgium, examined 10 years worth of data of bird species counts in Cusuco National Park.<\/span><\/p>\n Operation Wallacea, a conservation organization that Neate-Clegg joined in 2015, started collecting the data in 20016 by point counting from 115 different locations every year.<\/p>\n According to Neate-Clegg, during a point count, the observer stands for 10 minutes and records all of the bird species seen or heard.<\/p>\n Because it is difficult to spot birds in dense forests, all of the ornithology team were trained to be able to identify the bird species of the park, especially from their calls and songs.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n They found most species moving upslope, at an average of 23 feet (7 meters) per year. Beyond species-specific changes in elevation, the researchers focused on bird diversity along the mountain slopes.<\/p>\n \u201cBy looking across all species we could show that the diversity was increasing at higher elevations and decreasing at lower elevations,\u201d Neate-Clegg said in a statement.<\/p>\n According to Neate-Clegg, although no one can yet clearly prove why birds are shifting upslope, climate change has a hand in it.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is difficult to say what exactly is causing birds to shift upslope. Multiple studies around the world have now documented it, including this one, but the direct cause has not been tested. The consistency of the observation, across the tropics and in degraded and undegraded forest indicates global climate change and this matches up with the theory,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cWe know that every species has a niche, which includes both the environmental and biological variables to which that species is adapted. The idea is that as temperatures warm, the ideal temperature for each species moves higher upslope, and that the species will themselves move upslope to follow it.\u201d<\/p>\n Whether temperature plays a direct role or an indirect one has not yet been determined though.<\/p>\n \u201cHowever, we don’t yet fully understand whether it is a direct role of temperature in determining elevational ranges or whether ranges are determined by microhabitat, food availability, disease etc which are in turn mediated by temperature,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Additionally, the researchers believe the continuing development and deforestation is another factor to the shift.<\/p>\n \u201cEvery year we go back and resurvey, and transects that were forested the previous year are suddenly cut down,\u201d Neate-Clegg said in a statement. \u201cThey are encroaching year on year.\u201d<\/p>\n The terrain\u2019s status as a national park, he says, doesn\u2019t seem to be much of a deterrent for those seeking to expand agricultural land.<\/p>\n According to Neate-Clegg, possible solutions are land protection and global efforts to slow and halt climate change.<\/p>\n Protected areas should \u201cencompass not only species\u2019 present distribution, but also their future distribution under climate change. So for mountain species, it is important to protect whole elevational gradients so that species can move upslope unhindered,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n As for climate change, Neate-Clegg advises everyone first does his part.<\/p>\n \u201cAnyone can make a difference by eating less meat, cycling to work, switching lights off,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Neate-Clegg will continue studying how tropical montane birds respond to climate change.<\/p>\n \u201cI am investigating multiple avenues, including changes in demographic rates (e.g., survival) and species distributions in Africa, and I am interested in what consistencies there might be in species responses across the tropics,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Bird species in the cloud forests of Honduras are losing their habitats and forced to move to higher elevation because of climate change and deforestation, a new study suggests. This 10-year study signals a real possibility of extinction for some of the world\u2019s most unique species. The paper is published in the journal Biotropica. Situated […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":26711,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[636,641,233,230,229,549],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26710","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-biodiversity","category-climate-change","category-sustainable","category-news","category-lead-stories","category-university-of-utah"],"aioseo_notices":[],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/bird-retreating.jpg",830,533,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/bird-retreating-224x144.jpg",224,144,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/bird-retreating-300x193.jpg",300,193,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/bird-retreating.jpg",830,533,false],"large":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/bird-retreating.jpg",830,533,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/bird-retreating.jpg",830,533,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/bird-retreating.jpg",830,533,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"Hyeyeun Jeon","author_link":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/author\/hyeyeun-jeon\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Bird species in the cloud forests of Honduras are losing their habitats and forced to move to higher elevation because of climate change and deforestation, a new study suggests. This 10-year study signals a real possibility of extinction for some of the world\u2019s most unique species. The paper is published in the journal Biotropica. Situated…","featured_media_src_url":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/bird-retreating.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26710","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/60"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26710"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26710\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}The real world steps in<\/b><\/h2>\n
The study <\/b><\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/IMG_5204.jpg\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/IMG_1431.jpg\")
The findings<\/b><\/h2>\n
Possible solutions<\/b><\/h2>\n