Great tits in the UK may be evolving longer beaks to better access bird feeders, compared to their counterparts in the Netherlands:
Setting up a bird feeder is one of the easiest ways to interact with wildlife. But could this seemingly innocent pastime be changing the very shape of our backyard birds? It's still too early to say for sure, says Lewis Spurgin, an evolutionary biologist at the University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom. But he and his colleagues have discovered some truly fascinating clues that a bird called the great tit may be evolving longer beaks to access bird feeders.
"We know that evolution by natural selection produces peacocks' tails and giraffes' necks and that sort of thing," says Spurgin, whose findings were published today in Science. "But it also works in much more subtle ways that are much more difficult to observe."
Also at Newsweek and Science Daily (reprint).
Recent natural selection causes adaptive evolution of an avian polygenic trait (DOI: 10.1126/science.aal3298) (DX)
(Score: -1, Troll) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday October 22 2017, @05:08AM
How To Play...
Marble GalleryGGYYYEAAHHAHA? [youtube.com]
Hell Yeah You Do, niggah!
(Score: 5, Funny) by lx on Sunday October 22 2017, @05:31AM
But I only read it for the articles.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Runaway1956 on Sunday October 22 2017, @06:11AM (8 children)
British birds are smarter than European, right?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Sunday October 22 2017, @06:14AM (5 children)
Wait - is this a Buzzard submission? Part of that massive submission of massive boobies, or whatever the hell Ari was bitching about? The lack of attribution for the submission confuses me . . .
(Score: 3, Funny) by takyon on Sunday October 22 2017, @06:17AM (1 child)
Look again (don't get distracted by the tits).
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday October 22 2017, @06:25AM
Ahhh, my bad, must have been something in my eye?
(Score: 5, Informative) by lx on Sunday October 22 2017, @07:35AM (2 children)
Tits are not boobies!
Don't get the two confused.
A booby [wikipedia.org] is a sea bird.
A tit [wikipedia.org] is found inland.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 22 2017, @10:03AM (1 child)
Do you mean a European Great Tit, or an African Great Tit?
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Monday October 23 2017, @06:20PM
Ah, I, I don't know that! AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!
(Score: 2) by Arik on Sunday October 22 2017, @06:59AM
Oh, wait, you're talking about *that kind* of birds?
*backs out slowly.*
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by wisnoskij on Sunday October 22 2017, @09:48PM
Based on this temp map (https://i.imgur.com/Qm1jtqU.gif?noredirect). In general, perhaps, smarter than the Mediterranean part, but less intelligent than the Scandinavian part. But then, the British isle might still be small enough to get the island dumbification.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by julian on Sunday October 22 2017, @07:28AM
I'd be surprised if this wasn't happening, but the speed of microevolution can often surprise us. This effect is very close to what was noticed in the early research [wikipedia.org] done by none other than Charles Darwin himself on Galapagos finches. These isolated populations of birds diverged significantly from their founding populations according to the available food sources.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 22 2017, @07:48AM (2 children)
Birdfeeders? I thought they were evolving to help attract potential mates.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 22 2017, @08:49AM
If you don't eat, then you don't breed. Right?
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 23 2017, @04:53AM
A problem some folks have with their avian lunch counters is competition from squirrels.
The little bastards climb up the poles or shimmy down cords or drop from branches or jump from a perch.
Back when I read sci.electronics.design regularly, from time to time someone would ask for an electrical solution.
The answer is ages old and doesn't require a power supply:
Fill your feeder with jalapeño seeds.
Just mixing them in in sufficient quantities with the other stuff can do the trick.
Mammals have receptors for capsaicin and birds don't.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 5, Funny) by Hardness on Sunday October 22 2017, @09:53AM (2 children)
"Great Tits..."
You have my attention, Soylent.
"...May be evolving..."
Okay, yeah, Fuck yeah.
"...Longer..."
What? Nipples? Viens? Streams of Milk? How has evolution impacted Great Tits?
I hope it's not the breast itself. My National Geographic days are far behind me!
"...Beaks..."
Fuck you, Soylent.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 22 2017, @12:09PM (1 child)
Better than vagina dentata
(Score: 1) by Hardness on Sunday October 22 2017, @01:16PM
In a world of misread headlines, No one has better Tits than Virginia D. Ntata...
(Score: 3, Funny) by Gaaark on Sunday October 22 2017, @10:17AM
Why does this make me want to go motor-boating?
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 3, Insightful) by inertnet on Sunday October 22 2017, @10:22AM (1 child)
Bird feeders may not be the best way to attract great tits.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 22 2017, @11:41AM
why not? it's where all the peckers are at!