The rare hybrid bird identified in a suburb of San Antonio, Texas is in the center of the image. On the left, a male and right cage, a female green cage.
Climate change are not only to displace geographical borders, but also to create new biological encounters that can redefine whole ecosystems. Welcome to the world, Blue and Green Gaius.
“Blue and green, sputum on the wall.” But this is not the case. A new Gaio, with a viable green mother and a blue father, can only represent the tip of the iceberg of an absolutely fascinating new phenomenon.
Climate change are already beginning to leave unexpected and unpublished marks in the animal kingdom. A group of biologists from the University of Texas identified, in San Antonio, the first hybrid species resulting from the change of meteorological patterns: a cross between the gaio-green (Cyanocorax yncas), typical of tropical regions, and the Balker (Cyanocitta cristata), common in the east of the United States.
The case was at Ecology and Evolution by Brian StokesPhD student in Ecology, Evolution and Behavior, whose research focused on the Gaio-Verde. The discovery arose unexpectedly: a bird observer shared on social networks the presence of a specimen that was unaware of in his backyard. The bird had white chest, black mask around the eyes and intense blue plumage-characteristics that did not correspond to the Gaio-green or the Gaio-blue, the.
Intrigued, Stokes moved to the scene and, after some attempts, managed to capture the animal through a network for field studies. Blood samples were collected and a washer placed, allowing to confirm its hybrid origin: Mother Gaio-Verde and father Gaio-Blue.
Until a few years ago, the distribution of these two species was clearly delimited. The cold prevented the advancement of the Gaio-green to the north, restricting it south of Texas and Central America, while the Gaio-Azul focused on more temperate regions. However, increased temperatures and the demand for new habitats led both species to expand, creating a unpublished overlap in their distribution areas. It was in this context that the intersection occurred.
According to Stokes, it is the first vertebrate registered whose hybridization results directly from the expansion of territories caused, at least in part, by climate change. So far, the only well -known precedent involved two captivity -kept Gaios in the 1970s, whose descendant is preserved at the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History.
The evolutionary distance between the two parents is significant: seven million years. But the union has produced a viable individual, who may only represent the tip of the iceberg of a broader phenomenon. Investigators admit that species hybridization may be more common than you think, but it is difficult to document in the wild.
