Who we study:
Black-capped chickadee
Black-capped chickadees are one of the most familiar birds in North America. These non-migratory forest birds can be found visiting feeders and in backyards across much of the United States and Canada, extending from southern Pennsylvania all the way to Alaska. Their simple Fee-Bee song and scolding chick-a-dee-dee calls set the backdrop for many of our daily walks and outdoor activities.
Carolina chickadee
Carolina chickadees are the southern relative of the black-capped chickadee. Found in the south eastern United States, from Florida north to Pennsylvania, this greyer and smaller species is also a common and familiar backyard bird. Also non-migratory, you can see Carolina chickadees throughout the year in forests and backyards in the southeast.
Carolina chickadee photo by Andy Reago & Chrissy McClarren - Carolina Chickadee, CC BY 2.0, link
What we study:
Black-capped and Carolina chickadees hybridize in a long and narrow zone of contact that extends from New Jersey to Kansas. Our research on this hybrid zone has used genomic and community science data to document the speed at which it is moving northwards and found that this movement is tightly linked to warming minimum winter temperatures. We’re continuing our work on this hybrid zone by investigating what causes hybrids between these two species to have poorer spatial cognition and problem solving abilities than either parent species (NSF IOS 1754898) and by studying the genomic basis of physiological adaptations and their breakdown in hybrid chickadees (NSF DEB 1928891).
In the Press
Cornell Lab of Ornithology Video Press Release of This Work
The Pulse Listen to Scott talk about using eBird data to study avian hybridization
All About Birds Article Warming Temperatures Are Pushing Two Chickadee Species—And Their Hybrids—Northward
New York Times Article On The Cusp of Climate Change
Bird Watching Daily Warming temperatures are pushing Carolina and Black-capped Chickadees northward
The Australian Crossbreed chickadees chart climate march
Phys.org Warming temperatures are pushing two chickadee species—and their hybrids—northward
Futurity Hybrid Chickadees Move North With Warmer Weather
Cornell Chronicle Warming temperatures push chickadees northward
Publications
2020
Wagner DN, Curry RL, Chen N, Lovette IJ, Taylor SA. 2020. Genomic regions underlying metabolic and neuronal signaling pathways are temporally consistent outliers in a moving avian hybrid zone. Evolution. 74: 1498-1513.
2017
McQuillan MA, Huynh AV, Taylor SA, Rice AM. 2017. Development of 10 novel SNP-RFLP markers for quick genotyping within the black-capped (Poecile atricapillus) and Carolina (P. carolinensis) chickadee hybrid zone. Conservation Genetic Resources 9: 261-264. DOI 10.1007/s12686-016-0667-z
2014
Taylor SA, Curry RL, White TA, Ferretti V, Lovette IJ. 2014. Spatiotemporally consistent genomic signatures of reproductive isolation in a moving hybrid zone. Evolution 68: 3066-3081. PDF
Taylor SA, White TA, Hochachka WM, Ferretti V, Curry RL, Lovette IJ. 2014. Climate Mediated Movement of an Avian Hybrid Zone. Current Biology 24: 671-676. PDF
Associated Articles: Harr B, Price T. 2014. Climate Change: A Hybrid Zone Moves North. Current Biology 24: 230-232. PDF