Impact of climate change on the physiological condition of passerine birds during migration.

Abstract

Interest of specialists to the problem of impact ofclimate on the biosphere is constantly growingthroughout the world [1, 2]. Longterm data onchange in the timing of seasonal events in variousorganisms, longterm dynamics of their numbers,range expansions and other ecological consequencesof climate change are published regularly [3–5]. However, there are few publications where longtermchanges in morphological or physiological parametersare analyzed, mainly because of scarcity of highquality data [6–8].At the Biological Station Rybachy of ZoologicalInstitute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, longterm monitoring of breeding and migrating populations of birds has been performed continuously since1958. Valuable data on biometrics, including bodymass, wing length, fat score, and other parameters,have been collected. In collaboration with Ioffe PhysicalTechnical Institute of the Russian Academy ofSciences, a unique database has been compiled, whichincludes 3