Is there a correlation between pollutants and House Sparrow decline?
Introduction
Looking at recent studies and academic research, I am attempting to find a link in pollution, and the declining House Sparrow (passer domesticus) populations world-wide. A number of hypotheses have been proposed to explain the population decline of the house sparrow in urban areas. These include lack of food, particularly aphids, which adults feed to nestlings, pollution from vehicles running on unleaded fuel, increased predation by domestic cats or sparrow hawks (Accipiter nisus), cleaner streets providing reduced foraging opportunities, loss of nesting sites, particularly under the eaves and in the roofs of houses, pollution (air quality), both in terms of immediate toxicity and indirect toxicity through the food supply, increased use of pesticides in parks and gardens, and disease transmission. I decided to look at a few of these that seemed the most common, to try and help determine an answer to my question.
About House Sparrows
The House Sparrow is a member of the family Passeridae and it is one of the larger sparrows, with a length typically of 160-165mm and a wingspan of 210-255mm (Summers-Smith, 1988). It is a rather large headed, heavy billed, robust passerine. The sexes are dimorphic with the male being boldly patterned. The male is warm brown above, with a grey crown and nape. It has grey cheeks and grey underparts with black round the eyes. The mantle and scapulars are boldly streaked black, chestnut and buff and the tail is dark brown. The bib has black feathers with white tips that are gradually abraded so that by the beginning of the breeding season the bib becomes uniformly black (Summers-Smith, 1988). The female is rather...
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...7). The Urban Decline of the House Sparrow: A Possible Link with Electromagnetic Radiation. Electromagnetic Biology and Medicine, 12.
Gabor Seress, V. B. (2012). Urbanization, nestling growth and reproductive sucess in a moderately declining house sparrow population. Journal of Avian Biology, 13.
Rodriguez, R. (2005). Results and evaluation of the first study of organochlorine contaminants (PCDDs, PCDFs, PCBs and DDTs), heavy metals, and metalloids in birds from Baja California, Mexico. Environmental Pollution, 8.
Summers-Smith. (1988). The Sparrows. London: Collins.
Vincent, K. E. (2005). Investigating the causes of the decline of the urban House Sparrow population in Britain. De Montfort University: English Nature.
W. J. Peach, K. E. (2008). Reproductive sucess of house sparrows along an urban gradient. Animal Conservation, 11.
Conceptual Framework
Jennifer Price informs the readers about an economy in which a simple bird helped bloom it. For example the inclusion of many hotels and restaurants that utilized the bird as an eye opener. As she said “ a flamingo stands out in a desert even more strikingly than on a lawn.” The bird was used for numerous things including the affluence of a population that had just gotten out of the Great Depression. Jennifer Price also includes the birds magnificent color and how it also helped the economy.
When the author first moved to Minnesota, she lived in a friend of a friend’s apartment until she could find another apartment. The friend is out of town and required that the author takes care of her canary in order for her to stay there. The bird, which the author comes to call Budgie, is really annoying and has to be let out of its cage a few times or otherwise it will go crazy in the cage. The author looks extremely had to find an apartment to stay at. Apparently, there is only a less than 1% apartment vacancy in Minnesota. Also, the only apartments that are available are defiantly not accessible to entry-level employees, offering hot tubs and over $1000 a month payments.
The red-cockaded woodpecker, an inhabitant of mature pine forests and pine-grassland ecosystems from Maryland to eastern Texas, has had a troubled history within the last decade (Roise et al, 1990). Ten years ago, James documented a population decline in America’s largest remaining red-cockaded woodpecker population (1991). Of the 2,157 clusters, or living groups, contained in national forests, 693 of them were located in Florid...
And the new information about the number of beautiful birds used to furnish women’s hats caused further conservation movement. “It is high time for the whole civilized world to know that many of the most beautiful and remarkable birds of the world are now being exterminated to furnish millinery ornaments for womenswear. The mass of the new information that we have recently secured on this traffic from the feather trade headquarters is appalling. Subsequently, new policies and laws are created to give people equal access to wildlife.
Every day many species are slowly becoming either endangered or extinct and recently an endangered bird species called piping plovers, started nesting on Revere Beach. What would seem as a miraculous discovery, many are averse to their new inhabitants on the beach. Many Revere residents are complaining because the piping plovers now occupy parts of “their” beach. But in the article “Revere Beach should welcome the piping plover” The Editorial Board believes that the presence of the piping plover could be greatly beneficial to the city of Revere and I certainly agree. What led me to select this particular article is my concern for the many endangered species in the world like the piping plover. Human hands have led many species to become endangered
The female reproductive system in birds is reduced in most species to a left ovary and oviduct. This unilateral reduction of the female reproductive system is thought to bear two benefits: it reduces the female’s body and it prevent the potential problem of simultaneously carrying two large fragile eggs within the abdominal cavity. It also balances the body with the liver on the right side adjacent to the left ovary.
8. Taylor, Dan. 1998. Audubon Society Inspired to Action by Bird Die -offs . 17 Jan. 1998 . E-mail . Available bkus@sunstroke.sdsu.edu
Two key scientists in “de-extinction”, Stewart Brand and George Church, hosted a symposium at Harvard Medical School called “Bringing Back the Passenger Pigeon” in February 2012. At this symposium, Church demonstrated his...
Welch Jr., K. C., & Suarez, R. K. (2008). Altitude and temperature effects on the energetic cost of hover-feeding in migratory rufous hummingbirds, Selasphorus rufus. Canadian Journal of Zoology, 86(3), 161-169. doi:10.1139/Z07-127
Evidence provided to support these claims of human and wildlife harm is largely from laboratory studies in which large doses are fed to test animals, usually rats or mice, and field studies of wildlife species that have been exposed to the chemicals mentioned above. In laboratory studies, high doses are required to give weak hormone activity. These doses are not likely to be encountered in the environment. However the process of bioaccumulation can result in top-level predators such as humans to have contaminants at levels many million times greater than the environmental background levels (Guilette 1994). In field studies, toxicity caused by endocrine disruption has been associated with the presence of certain pollutants. Findings from such studies include: reproductive disruption in starfish due to PCBs, bird eggshell thinning due to DDT, reproductive failure in mink, small penises in alligators due to DDT and dicofol (Guillette 1994, Colburn et al 1996). In addition, a variety of reproductive problems in many other species are claimed to be associated with environmental contamination although the specific causative agents have not been determined. One recent discovery that complicates the situation is that there are many naturally occurring "phytoestrogens", or chemicals of plant origin that exhibit weak estrogenic properties.
...(1995). The Beak of the Finch: A Story of Evolution in Our Time. Vintage Books: New York.
Thousands of different types of birds roam the Earth as we know it today, so let’s begin consider the origin of these beings. How had these creatures come to be? What was their original form? The evolution of birds has only recently begun to explode with new information within the last decade (Savile, 1957, p. 212). Birds are unique creatures and inhabit a wide variety of locations, but constant among them is the fact that they came from Archaeopteryx. Over time, three key changes have developed with the bird’s anatomy that makes it a paradigm of evolution.
Smith, Gene. "Lost Bird." American Heritage 47.2 (1996): 38. MAS Ultra - School Edition. EBSCO. Web. 6 Apr. 2015.
The results of natural selection in Darwin 's finches and British Columbian sparrows change my view of species because every living animal changes to survive conditions that get in the way of normal life.
The hedge-sparrow fed the cuckoo so long That it had it head bit off by it young. So out went the candle, and we were left darkling" I.iv.189-192