‘Much of our understanding of how animals respond to climate change comes from studies that assume all individuals within a population experience the same environment. The findings, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, demonstrate how examining responses to climate change at small spatial scales reveal patterns and relationships that are masked by population wide studies. This work suggests that studying response to climate change at a scale that is relevant to individual animals can provide new insights in this field. The researchers hope that the findings will promote more studies that explore the causes and consequences of small-scale variation in response to climate change. The study, titled ‘Spatial variation in avian phenological response to climate change linked to tree health’ is published in the journal Nature Climate Change.
