Thousands of birds migrating across New Mexico in the fall of 2020 and researchers now link the event to extreme temperature and climate conditions.
They call it an example of "disaster ecology" 鈥� how one extreme variable or disaster impacts an ecosystem. In this case, the air was thick with wildfire smoke when the temperatures swung from around 100 degrees to almost freezing. The drought didn鈥檛 help either.
鈥淲hen we have these extreme events, there are always consequences,鈥� said Jeanne Fair, an ornithologist with Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico who studied the die-off.
Though disaster ecology isn鈥檛 a field of study, it is a perspective scientists can view different events through, and Fair says 鈥渃atastrophic鈥� events like this are happening more often as the climate changes.
They can be direct like 鈥渂irds falling out of the sky鈥� or happen more slowly, like the die-off of conifer trees by drought, higher temperatures or insect infestations.
鈥淎nd then what effect does that have on the humans that use these resources?鈥� she asked.
Fair says the variables for these events are vast 鈥� from forest fires to animal diseases transferred to humans 鈥� and understanding how ecosystems adapt will help mitigate, predict or prevent these things from happening.
Los Alamos National Laboratory and New Mexico State University have to teach students how to study migratory birds through the lens of disaster ecology, .
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