Evolutionary consequences of climate change in birds

There is now overwhelming evidence that the recent rapid climate change has multiple consequences for birds: their abilities to adapt to climate change is thus a major issue. To understand the evolutionary consequences of climate change, an assessment of how it alters selection pressures is needed. As expected, climate change increases selection for earlier breeding but non-intuitive selection patterns are likely to arise for traits other than phenology. Evolutionary responses to these new selection pressures depend on the evolutionary potential in wild bird populations. Heritability alone is not sufficient to predict responses to selection, as many genetic factors (e.g., genetic correlations, indirect genetic effects) can affect evolutionary trajectories. Altogether, studies investigating the nature of responses to climate change in wild populations (plastic vs microevolutionary responses) are still scarce but suggest that the majority of responses would be due to plasticity.