A pair of blue-tailed bee-eater.
(Madhusudhan Sr/TOI, BCCL, Mysuru)When outdoors, be it at a serene location in nature or at a park in the midst of a city, the one sound very likely to catch our attention is the melodious chirping of birds. Remarkably, these birds form a diverse group of avian species that can be found in almost every nook and corner of the Earth.
One thing that sets birds apart from other animals is their ability to loft skywards by spreading their beautiful plumage. This grants them the freedom to travel long distances, and therefore, avian enthusiasts often keep spotting unique birds hailing from distant native lands. Known as birdwatching, this popular hobby dates back to the 18th century.
But, have you ever wondered just how many birds reside on this planet? Take a quick guess! The answer is most probably higher than your expectations.
The largest data study on bird population
Red-breasted Flycatcher.
(Madhusudhan SR/TOI, BCCL, Mysuru)A new data study—the largest ever—has established a figure for the total bird population around the world, which stands at a whopping 50 billion! Interestingly, this mammoth figure also outnumbers the total human population on the planet by nearly six times.
The team made this finding by analysing the number of birds that fall under each of the 9,700 identified species of avian creatures, including flightless birds like emus and penguins. The overall data includes about 92% of the total birds that are currently alive.
“Humans have spent a great deal of effort counting the members of our own species—all 7.8 billion of us. This is the first comprehensive effort to count a suite of other species,” said Will Cornwell, an ecologist at UNSW Science and co-senior author of the study.
Explaining the importance of this first-of-a-kind study, the lead author Dr Corey Callaghan said: “While this study focuses on birds, our large-scale data integration approach could act as a blueprint for calculating species-specific abundances for other groups of animals.
“Quantifying the abundance of a species is a crucial first step in conservation. By properly counting what’s out there, we learn what species might be vulnerable and can track how these patterns change over time–in other words, we can better understand our baselines.”
The billion club species
Representative Image: Paradise Flycatcher
(Madhusudhan Sr/TOI, BCCL, Mysuru)The species that fall in the billion club include the House Sparrow, which accounts for a population of 1.6 billion, followed closely by European Starling (1.3 billion), Ring-billed Gull (1.2 billion) and Barn Swallow (1.1 billion). On the other hand, nearly 12% of the global bird population has members less than 5,000—these include Chinese Crested Tern, Noisy Scrub-bird, and Invisible Rail.
Another finding of the study highlights that several iconic birds native to Australia account for millions of individuals. For example, the Rainbow Lorikeet has a whopping 19 million population, followed by Sulphur-crested Cockatoo (10 million) and Laughing Kookaburra (3.4 million). On the other hand, some rare birds of Australia, like the Black-breasted Buttonquail, are witnessing a decline with only 100 of them thriving on our planet.
“We'll be able to tell how these species are faring by repeating the study in five or 10 years. If their population numbers are going down, it could be a real alarm bell for the health of our ecosystem,” said Prof Cornwell.
The study has been conducted by researchers from the University of New South Wales (UNSW) in Sydney, Australia. The team derived this conclusion from the information based on the online database of eBird, which contains sightings of over a billion birds. As per the official statement, the study included data from more than 6 lakh citizen scientists, who added their sightings to the eBird dataset between 2010 and 2019.
In addition, they used algorithms methodology to estimate the total population. They also evaluated factors like how often each species was spotted by a person and then submitted the sighting on the online citizen science portal.
The results of the study have been published in the journal The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and can be accessed here.
https://weather.com/en-IN/india/environment/news/2021-05-19-more-than-50-billion-birds-reside-on-planet-earth
2021-05-19 10:09:46Z
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